invoice-chase

Invoice Chase

Quick start

Pull the AR aging report, score each customer by payment history, draft a tone-matched reminder for each overdue invoice, and present them to the owner. Nothing sends until the owner says so.

User: "who owes me money"
→ Pull AR aging from QuickBooks
→ Cross-reference PayPal settlements (last 14 days)
→ Score each customer: good-payer / occasionally-late / repeat-late
→ Draft tone-matched reminders
→ Show summary table + drafts. Wait for "send these."

Setup (first run only)

Ask the owner two questions before running for the first time:

1. Mail connector: "Do you use Gmail or Apple Mail for drafts?" — store the answer; use it for all non-PayPal draft queuing.
2. Stripe: "Do you use Stripe for invoicing? I can include Stripe invoices in the overdue sweep." — if yes, pull Stripe overdue invoices alongside QuickBooks.

Do not ask again on subsequent runs.

Workflow

1. Pull overdue receivables. Query QuickBooks AR aging for all invoices more than 1 day past due. If Stripe is enabled (owner confirmed at setup), also pull Stripe overdue invoices.

2. Cross-reference payment history. For each overdue customer, query PayPal for settled transactions using these parameters:

   • transaction_status: S (settled only — filters out pending and denied transactions that inflate result size and increase rate-limit risk)
   • Date window: last 7 days ending today (not 14 or 30 — wider windows are the primary cause of PayPal 429 rate limit errors)

   If PayPal returns a 429 rate limit error:

   • Retry once immediately with a 3-day window instead.
   • If the retry also returns 429, skip the PayPal cross-reference entirely for this run. Flag all customers in the batch as "PayPal unavailable — verify manually" in the summary table. Proceed to scoring using QuickBooks history only. Do not silently drop the caveat.

   If a customer shows a settled payment within the query window, flag as "possibly paid — verify" and exclude from the draft queue.

3. Score each customer. Read reference/tone-matching.md for scoring logic. Result: good-payer, occasionally-late, or repeat-late.

4. Draft reminder emails. One email per customer — consolidate multiple overdue invoices into one email. Match tone to score. See reference/examples/gentle-reminder.md and reference/examples/firm-reminder.md.

5. Present drafts to owner. Show a summary table first:

   Customer	Amount Due	Days Late	Tone	Send via
   Acme Corp	$1,200	18 days	Gentle	PayPal
   Smith LLC	$450	47 days	Firm	Gmail draft

   Then show each draft email in full. Wait for owner to say "send these" or approve individually.

6. Send or queue — only after approval.

   • PayPal invoices: send the reminder via PayPal.
   • Non-PayPal invoices: queue as a draft in the owner's configured mail app.
   • Never send without explicit approval.

7. Report what happened. List what was sent, what was queued as draft, and what was flagged (possibly paid, excluded).

Approval gates

• Never send or queue a draft without explicit owner approval. Present all drafts first; wait for the go-ahead.
• Never include a customer who paid in the last 14 days. Flag as "possibly paid — verify" instead.
• Never send to a customer not in the QuickBooks AR report (or Stripe, if enabled). No reminders from memory alone.
• One approval covers one batch. Adding a customer or changing a draft after approval starts a new round.

Reference

• reference/tone-matching.md — scoring logic, tone guidelines, subject line formulas
• reference/gotchas.md — known failure modes
• reference/examples/gentle-reminder.md — good-payer email example
• reference/examples/firm-reminder.md — repeat-late-payer email example