How to do it
Put a real due date on every invoice first
Housecall Pro will not send a single reminder unless four things are true: the job is marked finished, the invoice has a due date, the balance is above $0, and the invoice was actually sent to the customer. Most HVAC shops fail on the due date. If your invoices say 'due upon receipt' with no date in the date field, fix that before anything else. Net 15 is a reasonable default for residential service.
Housecall Pro: Settings, then Notifications, then Customer
That is the path. Scroll to the Invoices section and switch the Reminder toggle on. Then click the pencil icon next to it and hit Edit to get at the actual schedule. If you never open the pencil, you get whatever the defaults are, which is usually not what you want.
Pick the interval and the count
Housecall Pro gives you every day, every 2 days, every 3, every 5, every 7, every 14, or every 30. You choose how many go out, anywhere from 1 to 10. For HVAC service work, every 7 days with a cap of 4 is a sane starting point. That is a month of polite nudges and then it stops. Every day with a cap of 10 will get you blocked as spam and it will cost you the customer.
Exclude the accounts that should never get an automated nudge
Same pencil icon, exclusions section. You can search a customer by name or enter a customer tag. Use this for property managers on 60-day terms, commercial accounts where a human is already handling collections, and anyone in a warranty dispute. Excluding a customer stops reminders that are already in flight, not just future ones.
Jobber: the follow-ups live under Automations, not Invoice Reminders
This trips up almost everyone. Jobber has a feature literally called Invoice Reminders, and it does not email your customer. It reminds YOU to invoice by moving the job to Requires Invoicing status. The customer-facing ones are the two invoice follow-up automations. Open a follow-up card under the invoices heading to get the Edit Automation menu.
Set the two Jobber follow-ups by days past due
Each one is a number of days after the invoice due date, up to a maximum of 90. Two is all you get, so spend them well. Day 7 and day 21 works for residential. The follow-up goes out on the same channel the invoice went out on, so a texted invoice gets a texted reminder. They send shortly after 8AM local time on the day they fire. Invoice follow-ups need Jobber's Connect plan or higher.
Send yourself a test and read it as a customer would
Create a $1 invoice to your own email, backdate the due date, and let the sequence run. Read the wording. Default reminder copy tends to sound like a collections agency. If your tool lets you edit the message, make it sound like your office manager wrote it: name the job, name the amount, give the payment link, stop. Then delete the test invoice.
Where this goes wrong
The parts most guides skip, and the ones that actually cost you money:
- Auto invoicing and invoice reminders are not the same thing, and Housecall Pro will not run both. Auto invoicing sends the first invoice for a finished job the customer has not been billed for yet. Reminders only go to customers who already received an invoice. Housecall Pro's reminders are not compatible with batch invoicing or auto invoicing, so if you turn on auto invoicing you lose the reminder sequence on those invoices. Pick one.
- Changes only apply to future invoices. Turning reminders on today does nothing for the $8,400 in aging receivables already sitting there. Those still need a human. Set the automation up so tomorrow's invoices handle themselves, then work the existing backlog by hand this week.
- Two follow-ups is a real ceiling in Jobber. If an invoice is 60 days past due and both automations already fired, the software is done. Nothing escalates on its own. Put a calendar rule in place for what happens at day 45, because the tool will not tell you.
- A reminder is not a collections process. Automated email is good at catching the customer who genuinely forgot, which is most of them. It does nothing about the customer who cannot pay for a $12,000 system replacement. Those need a payment plan conversation, and no toggle will produce one.
Overdue Invoice Follow-Up Writer
One overdue invoice in, three ready-to-send follow-ups out.
Common questions
How many reminders should an HVAC company actually send?
Three or four, spaced about a week apart, then stop and have a person follow up. Housecall Pro allows up to 10, but sending 10 automated emails about the same invoice reads as harassment and damages a relationship worth far more than one repair ticket.
Will reminders stop automatically once the customer pays?
Yes. Both Housecall Pro and Jobber gate reminders on an outstanding balance, so a paid invoice drops out of the sequence. That is why the balance-above-zero condition matters: a partial payment that leaves $40 on the invoice will keep the reminders running.
Can I do this without Housecall Pro or Jobber?
Yes. QuickBooks Online has automatic invoice reminders in its sales settings, and most invoicing tools have some version. The setup logic is the same everywhere: a real due date, a schedule measured in days past due, a cap, and an exclusion list.
Do reminders go by text or email?
In Jobber the follow-up matches how the invoice was originally delivered, so a texted invoice produces a texted follow-up. Housecall Pro reminders are configured under customer notifications. Text gets read faster, but check your state rules on business texting before you lean on it.
Sources
- How do I Set Up Invoice Reminders? — Housecall Pro Help CenterSettings > Notifications > Customer path, the seven frequency intervals, the 1 to 10 reminder cap, the four conditions that must be true before reminders start, and customer exclusions.
- What's the difference between Auto Invoicing and Invoice Reminders? — Housecall Pro Help CenterReminders only go to customers who already received an invoice; auto invoicing sends the first invoice for a newly finished job.
- Automations — Jobber Help CenterTwo invoice follow-up automations, set in days after the due date up to 90, matching the invoice's original channel, sending shortly after 8AM local, on the Connect plan and up.
- Invoice Reminders — Jobber Help CenterJobber's Invoice Reminders feature prompts the business to invoice by moving the job to Requires Invoicing status, which is not the same as a customer-facing follow-up.
Related guides
- Automatic invoice follow-up sequence
- How to use ChatGPT for overdue invoices
- Auto review requests for HVAC
- Missed-call text-back for HVAC
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