PRD — Smart Invoice Reminders

Author: Maya Chen Status: Draft, ready for review Target release: v2.3.0 (2026-07-08) Est. engineering size: 1.5 sprints

Problem

Small business owners on Ledger lose ~14% of monthly revenue to late payments. Support tickets (n=312, Q1 2026) show "I forgot to follow up" as the #1 stated reason for uncollected invoices. Users currently have no in-app mechanism to schedule or automate payment reminders — they export to email manually or rely on memory. Competitors Freshbooks and Wave both offer automated reminders; exit survey data (n=47, Feb 2026) shows 19% of churned users cited "no reminders" as a contributing factor.

Target users: Freelancers and small business owners with 10–100 active invoices/month who manage billing without a dedicated AR team.

Success Metrics

| Metric | Baseline | Target | Measurement window | |---|---|---|---| | Average days-to-payment on open invoices | 31 days | ≤ 24 days | 60 days post-launch | | % invoices paid within 14 days of due date | 41% | ≥ 55% | 60 days post-launch | | Feature adoption (reminder configured on ≥1 invoice) | 0% | ≥ 35% of active users | 30 days post-launch | | Support tickets tagged "late payment / reminders" | 22/month avg | ≤ 10/month | 60 days post-launch |

Scope

• User can configure a reminder schedule per invoice: before due (e.g., 3 days prior), on due date, and after due (e.g., 7 days overdue)
• Reminder delivered via email using the user's existing Ledger sender address
• Default schedule configurable at the account level; overridable per invoice
• Reminder email uses a pre-built template with invoice number, amount, and payment link; user can add a custom note (≤ 280 characters)
• Reminders stop automatically once invoice is marked paid or voided
• Activity log shows when each reminder was sent

User Stories

As a freelancer with 30 open invoices, I want automatic payment reminders sent on a schedule I define, so that I get paid faster without manually tracking who owes me.

As a small business owner, I want to set a default reminder schedule at the account level, so that every new invoice inherits the same policy without extra setup.

As a client receiving a reminder, I want the email to include the invoice amount and a one-click payment link, so that I can pay immediately without logging into a portal or searching my inbox.

As a business owner reviewing collections, I want to see a log of all reminders sent per invoice, so that I can confirm follow-up happened before escalating to a collections call.

Out of Scope

• SMS or in-app push reminders (email only in v2.3)
• Custom HTML email templates
• Reminder scheduling for recurring invoices (separate project; depends on recurring billing v2.4)
• Two-way communication (reply-to-pay, disputes via email)
• Client-side portal changes
• A/B testing of reminder copy

Open Questions

| # | Question | Owner | Due | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Do we use Ledger's existing transactional email provider (Postmark) or introduce SendGrid for reminder volume? Impacts cost model. | @eng-infra | 2026-06-02 | | 2 | Should reminders be paused when a payment plan is active on an invoice? Payment plans ship in v2.2 — confirm interaction. | @maya-chen | 2026-06-05 | | 3 | Legal review needed: does auto-sending reminders to EU clients require additional consent capture under GDPR? | @legal | 2026-06-09 | | 4 | What is the rate limit on outbound reminder emails per account to prevent spam flagging? | @eng-infra | 2026-06-02 |

Rollout Plan

Mechanism: Feature flag (smart_reminders_v1), phased rollout.

Rationale: Email deliverability issues or reminder logic bugs could damage client relationships at scale. Phased release lets us validate send rates and payment impact before full exposure.

| Phase | Audience | Gate criteria | Date | |---|---|---|---| | Internal | Ledger employees (n≈40) | No send errors; logs accurate | 2026-06-24 | | Beta | Opted-in power users (n≈200) | <2% unsubscribe rate; 0 deliverability flags | 2026-07-01 | | Broad | 20% of active accounts | Adoption ≥30% in beta cohort; no P1 bugs | 2026-07-08 | | GA | 100% of active accounts | 7-day metric check passes | 2026-07-15 |

Risk Register

R1 — Reminder emails land in spam, damaging client trust Likelihood: Medium | Impact: High Mitigation: Authenticate sends via SPF/DKIM on user's domain; monitor deliverability scores during beta; provide user-visible log so they know if send failed.

R2 — Reminder fires after invoice is already paid (race condition between payment webhook and scheduler) Likelihood: Medium | Impact: Medium Mitigation: Scheduler checks invoice status within 5 minutes of scheduled send time, not at job creation; add idempotency guard on send. QA to include payment-then-reminder race scenario.

R3 — Low adoption because users don't discover the feature Likelihood: High | Impact: Medium Mitigation: Add contextual prompt on invoice creation ("Set up a reminder?"); include in onboarding checklist; highlight in release notes email to existing users.

Reviewer Checklist

• [ ] Problem framing matches support ticket and churn data on file
• [ ] Success metrics have agreed baselines (confirm with analytics before sign-off)
• [ ] Legal open question (#3) resolved before Beta gate
• [ ] Email infrastructure decision (#1) made before engineering kickoff
• [ ] Out-of-scope items confirmed with PM — especially recurring invoices dependency
• [ ] Risk R2 race condition covered in QA test plan
• [ ] Feature flag implementation confirmed with eng lead