Customizing Your Reminder Schedule

Last updated: 2026-05-28 (revision)

Most users keep the default 4-step schedule, but you can edit step timing, tone, subject, or body to match your brand.

Editing steps

Go to Settings → Reminder schedule (under the Workspace group). For each step you can change:

Days offset — how many days before or after the invoice due date this reminder fires.
Direction — "before due date" or "after due date".
Tone target — Friendly / Formal / Firm / Final notice. Used by AI tone optimization as the target voice when it rewrites your copy. The selection is also recorded for reporting, but the actual rewrite only happens for steps with Let AI rewrite this step checked (Pro / Team plans only).
Email subject — what the client sees in their inbox.
Email body — HTML allowed. Supports these merge tags:
- {{contact_name}} — Client contact name
- {{invoice_number}} — e.g. INV-1042
- {{amount}} — Invoice total (formatted with currency)
- {{currency}} — Currency code
- {{due_date}} — Due date
- {{payment_link}} — Pay-now link URL
- {{sender_name}} — Your name as sender

Hit Save schedule to apply. Changes affect future reminders only — invoices that have already cleared a step won't be re-sent.

Reverting to the default

Once you've saved a custom schedule, a Reset to default button appears next to Save. Clicking it deletes your customizations and reverts to the system defaults.

Reset a single step: each Custom step also shows a Reset this step link in the header — click it to restore just that one step's subject + body to the Duefy default, without touching the other steps.

Live preview (auto-updates)

Each step has a Live preview pane under its body field that updates as you type. Sample data (Jamie Doe / INV-1042 / USD 1,500.00 / due in 7 days) is substituted in so you can see exactly what the rendered email looks like. The actual email at send time will swap in the real client + invoice data.

Inserting variables faster

Each step has an Insert toolbar with one chip per variable. Click a chip to drop the tag at the cursor of whichever subject or body input you last focused inside that step — no copy-pasting needed. The top-of-page Available variables panel keeps the full reference (with descriptions) for documentation.

Keyboard shortcut

⌘S / Ctrl+S saves the schedule from anywhere on the page. If you leave with unsaved changes, the browser will warn you first.

AI tone optimization (Pro / Team)

For each step you can check Let AI rewrite this step to match the tone target and Duefy will, at send time, regenerate the subject + body so they sound friendlier / firmer / etc., tuned per client based on their payment history. The handcrafted copy you wrote stays as the fallback — if the AI call fails for any reason, the email goes out with your original wording. AI tone optimization requires a Pro or Team plan.

Best practice

Keep tone friendly through step 2 — the bulk of late invoices clear up by then.
Make the final notice shorter and more direct. Skip the pleasantries; cite the next escalation.
Test by sending to yourself: create a sample invoice with your own email as client and watch the reminders arrive.

Permissions

Only the Owner or an Admin of your organization can edit the reminder schedule. Members can view but not save.

Adding or removing steps

Add a step: click + Add step below the last step card. New steps default to "7 days after due" with the Friendly tone and a blank subject + body. Up to 8 reminder steps total.
Remove a step: each step card has a × Delete action. Removing a step stops it from firing for any active invoice in your org — including the system default at that slot. To get it back later, click + Add step or Reset to default for the whole schedule.
Restore a deleted step: clicking Reset to default restores Duefy's 4-step baseline and discards your customizations. Use this if you want a clean slate.

What's not yet supported

Reordering steps — to change the firing order, edit the days offset so steps fall in the order you want.
Per-client schedules — every active invoice in the org follows the same schedule. Contact support if you need different schedules for different clients.