Why we moved reminder thresholds
Three days beats seven when the goal is a conversation, not a chase. The evidence from six hundred Northwind accounts.
Finance teams told us the seven-day overdue window felt polite. What it actually did was leave a genuine dispute unanswered for three days while the system waited to escalate.
What changed #
The due-today stage stayed put. Overdue now starts on day three. Final notice still lands on day fourteen. Collections handoff is unchanged. The only deliberate move was bringing the first human-shaped nudge forward.
This is not a collections hardening
Earlier contact is for disputes and payment plans, not for harsher wording. The copy in every stage stayed the same; only the calendar moved.
The evidence #
Across six hundred Northwind accounts, the share that needed a call after the overdue stage dropped once the threshold moved. The figure below is the shape of that shift, not a promise for every ledger.
What we kept #
Dispute flags still pause escalation. Prediction still ranks who is likely to slip. The schedule is still a consumer-owned calendar, not a Northwind policy dressed as product.
We assumed a longer overdue window would feel gentler. It mostly just meant the first three days of a genuine dispute went unanswered.
Further reading: How a dispute flag pauses escalation and How late-payment prediction works.