A reminder letter is the letter a debtor (customer) receives when there are overdue, unpaid entries on the account. The letter collects the outstanding entries, calculates any reminder fee and contains the reminder text and the payment details the customer needs in order to pay.
The reminder letter is not a standalone screen you open from the menu. It is a printout generated from an already completed reminder run. You start it from the Reminder overview, where all completed reminder runs are listed.
In Financial you open Accounting and select Reminder overview. Here you see a list of the reminder runs that have been completed, with the following columns:
Date - when the reminder run was completed.
Department - the department (organizational unit) the run belongs to.
Debtor - the customer the reminder concerns.
Reminder stage - which reminder step it is, shown as Reminder 1, Reminder 2 or Reminder 3.
You can filter the list on Debtor, Date (date range), Reminder stage and Department, so you quickly find the right runs. How to search in lists.
If you cannot see the menu item Reminder overview, you probably lack permissions - contact support.
Select the desired reminder run in the list and click the report/export button at the top of the Reminder overview. The button opens the shared print dialog that generates the reminder letter itself for the selected run. You do not need to fill in any parameters - the letter automatically fetches data from the selected reminder run.
In the print dialog you can:
Preview - view the letter on screen before you do anything with it.
Print - send the letter directly to the printer.
Download - download the letter as a file (PDF).
Send as email - send the letter directly to the debtor (see conditions below).
The button is only active when you have selected a row in the list, or when you have checked at least one row for a combined printout.
In addition to printing, the reminder letter can be sent directly to the debtor as an email from the same dialog. This requires that:
The debtor is set up to receive email (the debtor's debtor preferences support email), and that a valid email address exists on the customer.
The email template is filled in under Reminder setup. Both subject and body must be filled in before email is possible. The template can automatically insert the debtor's name.
If the email setup is not valid, or the debtor does not support email, the email option will not be available - then you can print or download the letter instead.
If you need to process several reminder runs at once, you can check them in the list. Use the checkbox on the individual rows, or select Check all to mark all runs.
When you then click the report/export button, one reminder letter is generated per checked run in the same workflow - so you can, for example, print or download the entire batch at once. There is an upper limit on how many runs you can include in one batch; if you exceed the limit, you get a message about it.
Note that email is turned off for batch printouts. If you want to send a reminder letter as email, you must select one reminder run at a time.
The reminder letter is addressed to the individual debtor and contains:
The debtor's information - name, address and contact details.
The overdue, unpaid entries - each entry is shown with document number, description, due date, original amount and remaining amount as well as a running sum, so the total amount owed is shown.
Reminder fee - any fee for the reminder as well as the associated fee text.
Reminder text - the text belonging to the current reminder stage (Reminder 1/2/3).
Payment details - the relevant payment methods, e.g. FIK/giro slip (FIK code, creditor number), bank details (account number, registration number, IBAN and BIC/SWIFT) as well as MobilePay, so the debtor can easily pay.
Reminder text, fee and email template come from Reminder setup. The reminder stage itself (Reminder 1, 2 or 3) is determined by which step the entries have reached in the reminder process.
If a reminder run has generated reminder documents (posting documents for fee/interest), you can view them directly from the Reminder overview. Select the row and choose View documents, or double-click the row. If the run has no reminder documents, you get a warning about it. The document overview shows the generated documents and is the accounting context behind the reminder - it is therefore not the letter itself that the customer receives.
The layout of the reminder letter itself - including the logo and logo placement, whether the top logo is hidden, whether the fee text is shown, and whether the reminder text is shown at the top - is controlled centrally by the report setup and is not something you choose in the print dialog. If you want changes to the letter's appearance, contact support.
The reminder letter requires that a reminder run has been completed. The runs are generated from the reminder process and build on your setup in Reminder setup, where you define reminder fees, reminder texts and email template. The completed runs are collected in the Reminder overview, which is the starting point for generating and sending the reminder letters themselves.
Want to know more?
Read more in these related articles:
Reminder overview
The Reminder overview in Sapera shows a historical list of all executed reminder runs. You can review, filter and export previous runs as well as view the associated documents.
Reminder run setup
Set up to three reminder steps with days, fees and letter texts, and configure automatic email sending to debtors with overdue invoices.
