Alumni
🆕 Late fees for Square Invoices

Hi sellers! 👋

 

Based on your feedback, we are excited to introduce a new way to help you avoid late payments on invoices and protect your cash flow with Late Fees - available now for all Invoices sellers in the US and Canada.

 

With late fees, you’ll be able to set clear expectations with your customers around the penalty for paying an invoice late.

 

What is a late fee?

A late fee is an additional charge your customer needs to pay on top of the total amount owed on an invoice, if an invoice hasn’t been settled by the agreed upon due date. Late fees can either be a flat fee or a percent of the total invoice.

 

You will also have the option to add a grace period for late fees, which is a set number of days between the invoice due date and the date a late payment fee is added to the invoice.

 

Where can I add a late fee?

You’ll be able to include a late fee on:

  • Estimates: Share your late fee policy when you send a quote, so you can set expectations before you’ve even created an invoice.

  • Invoices: Customize late fee details, like when the late fee will kick in and the amount, for one-off and recurring invoices.

  • Contracts: Include a late payment policy in your contracts, so you can protect yourself against disputes if an invoice isn’t paid on time.

 

How do you add a late fee?

You can set up a late fee when you create a new estimate or invoice. To do so:

  1. Click Late fee under the total amount.

  2. Set the late fee amount, which can be a percentage or flat rate. 

  3. Adjust the grace period for the fee.

 

You can also add a late fee to existing invoices. To do so:

  1. Click on an existing invoice.

  2. Select the three dots and click Edit.

  3. From here, follow the same steps as above.

You may remove late fees by clicking the X on the New invoice page, to the right of the late fee.

 

For more information on late fees and Invoices, check out these support articles:

42 Replies
Square Champion

This will help us greatly in ensuring invoices are paid on time. Thank you! 

Thank You!  This is great

Excellent!  Thank you. Can this be made as an option we can turn on full time and that it is automatically reoccurring each month?

Thanks this will help 👍 

Huge thanks for adding this feature.  It's been a pain and a lot of extra time adding late fees manually to every invoice.

Alumni

Hey @BearsLock!

 

Yes, you can add a late fee to recurring invoices. You would just set up the late fee once when creating that first invoice, then all of the recurring invoices sent after that first one would include that same late fee.

 

If you'd like to set up a late fee that would be included on all of your invoices, both one-time invoices and recurring invoices, you can update your default invoice template to include a late fee.

 

Your default template can be found in "Settings" -> "Invoices" -> then click on the default template tile to update it.

 

Hope that answers your question!

There needs to be automation where for every X amount of days after an invoice is still NOT paid, another late fee is added to the invoice. If this is an option, I can't find the directions to create this schedule. 

Exactly! 

Should be every 30 days (or same day each month) that the invoice or any part of is late.

Absolutely wonderful. This will help our website greatly. 

Thank you so much for this added feature. I definitely was adding it to the item lines when payment was late, but being able to set it up in advance and having it added automatically based on our settings is great. I did attempt to use this setting for one of my invoices that had a payment plan. A note appeared stating that option to add a late fee available was not available for invoices with payment plans. It would be awesome if this could be the next step/option for this setting. I'm a busy entrepreneur and having a setting or app in place to save me time, is great! Thank you in advance!

This is great, however, it would be better if it could be added to the template for invoices. That is have a set percentage that can be saved under a template with the contract and can be used multiple times. Let me know if this is possible. Thanks!

Alumni

@SweetElevations thanks for the feedback! I'll pass this request along to our product team.

Much appreciated.  Thanks again!

This would be great if we could just add it without having to have one line item added already to every default template. Otherwise I would have to add my late fee to over 20+ invoices a week.

Alumni

@Purari definitely! I've passed that feedback along to our product team.

would be beneficial for the late fee to be auto added after a set past due day and reminder sent to customer with new total.

I dominantly work from the mobile application; this does not appear to be an option for my overdue invoices? (Also, checked on desktop and same issue encountered.) Unable to find troubleshooting.

Can you apply a late fee to payment plans in which their payment is not made on time? I dont see a way to do it. I guess a work around would be to make multipole reoccurring invoices ?

Alumni

Hey @DR10. Yes it is possible, can add a late fee (either percent or set amount) to both your default template or any other custom invoice template you have.

 

Note, for now you'll need to add a line item to the template for the late fee option to show. But, based on recent feedback, we are working to make the late fee option always visible on templates so that it won't be necessary to have a line item on a template to add a late fee.

 

Hope that answers your question!

Alumni

Hey @Belowzero. If I am understanding your comment, this actually is how it works today.

 

You can add a grace period to your invoice, which is a specified number of days after the invoice is due before the late fee is applied to the total amount due.

 

Hope that answers your question!

Alumni

Hey @PeggyGirl! You are able to add a late fee to an invoice that has already been sent to a customer and is past due. Note, that if you're invoice includes a payment schedule (invoice split up into multiple payments) then you're not able to add a late fee to that invoice.

Can I send you a screenshot showing that I do not have the … or edit “Late Fees” option? Square is wonderful in application outside of this. 🙏🏼

Quick question... 

Is there a way to add progressive late fees? as in... "Every 3 days payment is late, additional late fees will accumulate" type of deal? 

 

My business is mobile automotive repair. I tend to have "Certain" clients that I allow to have a pay plan with me. I've had it bite me... Recently, > [-$800] kinda bite... 

Although I made my terms clear, It's MUCH more difficult to actually follow through with my policy of taking legal actions out against clients who don't fulfill the obligation of payment... given that I'm a sole proprietor / owner & operator, as well as a full time employee at a corporate business as a mechanic as well. 

 

I've even went so far as to send out 15 day notices to take action if fulfillment isn't received. this has worked sometimes... but not always. 

 

If theres a way to add cumulative late fees, I'm sure it would be much easier for me to avoid these situations all together if it's clear up front what may happen with their invoice... as it would likely scare anyone who thinks they can get away with not paying me for the work I do, into paying on time.. 

Alumni

Hey @UncleRed99,

 

Welcome to the Community!

 

Late fees can either be a flat fee or a percentage of the total invoice at this time. 

 

Feel free to share your suggestions in our Ideate Room here. Our Product Team keeps an eye on this forum as they are constantly improving our products based on feedback like this.

 

As always, feel free to stop by The Community with question, concerns, and even feature requests. We are more than happy to assist.

 

Alumni

@PeggyGirl sure! I just sent you a direct message about this.

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