WhatsApp payment reminders
Endelir sends payment reminders on WhatsApp from the system that already knows the invoice, the amount and the due date, and takes the customer's reply in your shared inbox. An invoice is due on Friday, the money has not arrived, and someone has to ask. Endelir sends that reminder on your business number, with the invoice number, the amount and the date already filled in, and takes the customer's reply in the same thread. What is owed, and whether it has been paid, stays in the system that already knows.
The ledger is in one place and the customer is in another
Chasing payment is the job nobody wants and everybody postpones. Someone opens the receivables list on a Monday, works down it with a phone in one hand, leaves four voicemails, and sends three emails that land under a week of other email. By Thursday the list is out of date and the calls start again.
The awkward part is not the asking. It is asking the wrong person. A customer who paid on Friday afternoon gets chased on Monday morning because the payment had not been reconciled when the list was printed, and the next conversation starts with an apology instead of an invoice. Meanwhile the customer who genuinely forgot is waiting for a message that never comes.
Your system knows who owes what. Endelir does the asking.
Endelir sends the reminder on your business number, as a message the customer can answer. The invoice number, the amount, the due date and your own payment link are filled into a template your business had approved in advance, so a business-initiated message can go out even though nobody has written to you recently. The reply lands in the shared inbox, where a person can deal with it.
Be clear about the division of work: Endelir keeps no ledger. It does not raise invoices, does not store due dates, and does not know whether money has arrived. Your accounting package, property system or billing software knows all of that, and it is the thing that decides a reminder is due and calls Endelir at that moment. The payment link in the message is your own — your payment provider, your bank page, your portal. Endelir carries the link and the conversation; it does not collect the money and does not see whether the customer paid.
How it works
- 1 The obligation already exists An invoice is raised, a deposit is agreed, or an instalment falls due — in whatever system you keep that in today. Endelir does not create it.
- 2 Your system checks before it asks The paid-or-not question is answered where the payments are reconciled. If it has been paid, your system makes no call and no reminder is sent. That is what stops a settled customer being chased.
- 3 It calls the Endelir API One request names the customer's number and the approved template, and supplies the values that change — invoice number, amount outstanding, due date, and the part of your payment link that is specific to them.
- 4 The reminder goes out Endelir sends it on your business number. Because you are starting the conversation, it goes as a template Meta has approved in advance rather than as free text.
- 5 The customer replies A reply opens a service window, so your team can answer in ordinary words for the next 24 hours without another template. The conversation can be assigned to whoever handles accounts.
- 6 Your system hears about it Endelir can call a URL of yours when a reply arrives, so the person chasing and the ledger do not drift apart.
- 7 The payment is recorded where it always was In your system. The next reminder in the schedule simply never gets requested.
What this looks like in practice
A hotel takes bookings with a deposit and asks for the balance seven days before arrival. The property system already holds the reservation, the balance and the arrival date. Ten days out it works through the arrivals, skips every booking already paid in full, and calls Endelir for the rest — one message each, carrying the guest name, the booking reference, the amount still due and a link to the hotel's own payment page.
A guest who pays does it from the link, on the hotel's own payment page, so it lands in the same place the hotel sees every other payment. Others reply instead: one asks to settle at check-in, one wants the invoice as a PDF, one says the amount looks wrong. Those three replies land in the shared inbox with the whole thread attached, and reservations answers them without anyone ringing round. Nothing about the money moves through Endelir — only the conversation about it.
What can happen next
Who this suits
What to know before you set it up
A reminder about money genuinely owed on an existing transaction is a utility message, and that is how the template should read: what the payment is for, how much, by when, and how to pay it. Adding an offer changes what the message is. “Your balance of ₹12,000 is due on the 14th” and “book again this month and save ₹1,000” are two different messages with two different sets of rules, and the second one belongs in a marketing campaign to people who opted in to hear from you.
Set the schedule from your own payment terms and whatever the law requires of you — one before the due date, one on it, one after is a common shape, and each stage is your system deciding to call rather than Endelir deciding on its own. Repeating a message at people who have already said they will pay is how a business gets reported and blocked. Contacts who have opted out are refused by Endelir even when the request comes through the API, and that rule is not negotiable per customer.
Someone has to make the API call. If your billing software can send a web request when an invoice ages, that is enough; if it cannot, Endelir can generate a Google Sheets script you paste into your own spreadsheet, which sends a message for each new row added to it — useful for a receivables list you maintain by hand, though it acts on new rows rather than watching a due-date column. API access is part of the higher plans, and the pricing section on the homepage says which.
What to watch
- How many reminders went out, and at which stage of the schedule
- How many were answered rather than ignored
- How long it takes from a reminder to the payment being recorded
- How many invoices needed a second or third reminder
- How many replies were disputes rather than delays
- How many customers have opted out and cannot be reminded this way
Related
Questions people ask
Can I send automatic payment reminders on WhatsApp?
Yes, when there is a real outstanding payment behind it — an invoice, a reservation balance, an instalment, a renewal on an existing subscription. The trigger lives in your billing system: when it decides a reminder is due, it calls the Endelir API and the message goes out on your business number as a template approved in advance. What Endelir does not do is work out for itself who owes you money. It holds no invoices and no due dates, so nothing is sent until your system asks for it.
Are payment reminders Utility messages?
A reminder that is only about an existing payment obligation generally fits the utility category: it names what the payment is for, the amount, the date and how to pay. Keep it to that. As soon as an offer or a promotion is attached, the message stops being a reminder and should be treated as marketing, sent to customers who opted in to receive it. Meta decides how each template is categorised when you submit it, and Endelir shows you the category and status it comes back with.
What happens if the customer pays before the reminder is sent?
Nothing is sent, because the check happens before the call. Your system knows the payment has been reconciled, so it skips that customer and never asks Endelir to send anything. This is the important part of the design and the reason the trigger belongs in your billing software rather than in a messaging tool: Endelir cannot see your bank account or your payment provider, so it cannot make that judgement for you. Set the reminder to be requested at the moment of sending rather than queued days ahead, and a customer who paid last night will not hear from you this morning.
Can a WhatsApp payment reminder include a payment link?
Yes, and the link is your own — your payment provider, your bank page, your customer portal. A template can carry a link button, with the part of the address that differs per customer filled in at the moment of sending, so each person gets their own invoice or checkout page. Endelir does not collect the money, does not process the card and does not know whether the link was paid; the payment goes to your provider exactly as it does today. Make sure the message says plainly what the payment is for before the customer taps anything.
How many payment reminders should a business send?
Follow your own payment terms and whatever your local law says about chasing debts. A common shape is one shortly before the due date, one on the day, and one after — with anything beyond that handled by a person rather than a schedule. Each of those stages is a separate decision by your system, so a customer who has paid, or who has agreed a date with your accounts team, simply drops out of the sequence. Repeating the same message at somebody who has already replied is the quickest way to have your number blocked and reported.
Can payment reminders handle partial payments?
Yes, as long as your system passes the current balance rather than the original total. The amount in the message is a value your call supplies, so a customer who has paid half of a fee sees what is actually left to pay. Endelir does not calculate it and does not hold a running balance — it sends the figure it is given. Getting this wrong is worse than not sending at all, so it is worth checking that the field you pass is the outstanding amount and not the invoice value.
Can customers reply to a payment reminder?
Yes, and they will. Some want the invoice as a document, some want to query a line on it, some want to pay next week. Every reply arrives in the shared inbox with the reminder above it, so whoever answers can see exactly what was asked for. A reply also opens a service window, which means your team can write back in ordinary words for the next 24 hours without needing another template. Conversations can be assigned to the accounts team, by hand or by a chat flow, so a billing question does not sit in the sales queue.
Reduce manual payment chasing without losing the customer context.
Connect your business number, and we will work out with you where the reminder should be triggered from in the system you already use. It is a call with a person, not a help article.
14 days free. No credit card. We call you to set the number up.