The five best accounts receivable software tools for agencies in 2026 are Paidnice, Chaser, Upflow, BILL and Satago.
Paidnice is the best choice for an agency on Xero or QuickBooks Online that wants a different reminder tone and late fee for each client group without a partner approving it every month, from $69 a month. Chaser suits an agency with a named credit controller, and BILL starts at $49 per user a month.
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Paidnice | An agency on Xero or QuickBooks Online that wants a retainer and a slow enterprise account chased on different rules, with a different late fee per client group |
| Chaser | An agency with a named credit controller who needs posted letters and a Creditsafe check on a new client, under £4m revenue on the entry tier |
| Upflow | An agency that wants collections measured by account manager, with countback DSO, before anything is automated |
| BILL | An agency whose freelance bench is the bigger monthly payment run and wants payables and receivables in one login |
| Satago | A UK agency that wants client credit reports and invoice finance from the same provider as its chasing |
What accounts receivable software for agencies is (and what it is not)
Accounts receivable software for agencies works the client invoices already sitting in Xero, QuickBooks Online or another ledger. It chases each invoice after it goes out, raises a fee where the contract allows one, and stops the chase the morning the client pays.
What it covers, as the five tools on this page show:
- Reminders by client group. Tone, cadence and timing set for a group of clients, with one disputed invoice held by its reference.
- Statements, payment plans and a portal. Statements on a schedule, installments against an open invoice, and a page where the client pays.
- Late fees and interest. Paidnice and Chaser raise the charge as a document on the ledger. Upflow leaves it to the ERP, BILL computes none and Satago adds an optional late fee to its reminder emails.
- Escalation. Posted letters, recorded calls and credit checks, in the tools that carry them.
It is not the project or practice system that writes the invoice, and it is not the ledger. Xero or QuickBooks Online still holds the invoice, the payment and any fee raised.
It is not a collections firm: the chase leaves from the agency's own domain or mailbox. Invoice finance, which Satago also sells, is lending and a separate product from the chasing.
How this list was put together
This list helps a creative, digital, design, marketing or PR agency chase client invoices on Xero, QuickBooks Online or another ledger.
| What we checked | Where the evidence came from |
|---|---|
| Segment fit: agencies, in the markets they trade in, at a price a principal will sign | Vendor customer pages and pricing pages |
| A late fee raised by the tool, with a rule that can differ from one client to the next | Vendor help pages on late fees and interest |
| Reminder grain per client group | Vendor workflow and reminder documentation |
| Entry price | The vendor's published pricing page, in the vendor's own currency |
| Ledger coverage past the agency's own accounting system | Vendor integration pages |
| Rating with a source | The Xero App Store or G2, with the review count; where two scores land within a tenth of a point, the deeper base wins |
What is the best accounts receivable software for agencies?
The right tool depends on the ledger and on who does the chasing. On Xero or QuickBooks Online, where each client group needs its own rule and fee, Paidnice fits.
Why do agency invoices go unpaid, and what can software fix?
An agency invoice runs late for one of two reasons: the client is slow, or the client is arguing. Software fixes the first and can make the second worse, so the useful shortlist question is how precisely a tool can be told who to leave alone.
A rule that runs by itself, per client group, takes the decision off that desk. It is set once, in the open, and the fee becomes a policy rather than an act by a named person. That design difference separates the tools an agency leaves switched on from the ones it quietly turns off in week three.
Xero's latest US small business data put the average US wait at 29.7 days, with invoices settling 8.6 days past their due date.
A California client takes 25.6 days to be paid, faster than the US average.
Five things worth checking before anyone sits through a demo:
- A rule per client group. Reminder tone, cadence and fee rate that can be set for a group of clients rather than once for the whole book, because a five-year retainer and a project client who stopped answering do not respond to the same wording.
- Exclusion at invoice level. The ability to hold one disputed invoice by its reference while everything else on that account keeps being chased.
- A charge that reaches the ledger. A fee raised as a document on the client's own ledger enters their payables system and can be credited later. A note inside a chasing tool cannot.
- Your own sending domain. The chase should arrive from the agency's accounts address, authenticated, rather than from a vendor's server.
- A live read of payments. Chasing has to stop the morning a client pays, which means the tool reads the ledger rather than a nightly export.
How do the five agency AR tools compare?
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Xero or QuickBooks Online agency with a rule per client group | Agency with a credit controller wanting letters and credit checks | Agency measuring DSO by account manager before automating | Agency paying a large freelance bench every month | UK agency wanting credit data and invoice finance |
| Revenue fit | Any size up to $50m a year, or 50,000 invoices a year | Compact under £4m, Core from £4m, Complete to £100m | Gross invoice value tiers, up to $10m through above $100m | Not published | Not published |
| From (monthly) | $69 | £199 | Not published | $49 per user | £45 (£25 inside Sage 50) |
| Ledger integrations | Xero, QuickBooks Online and newer ledgers such as Rillet and Campfire (closed testing) on every plan; Sage Accounting and other ERPs on Custom | Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, NetSuite, Dynamics 365 Business Central | Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Stripe Billing, Chargebee, Zuora | QuickBooks Online and Xero two-way from the Team tier, CSV only below it | Xero, Sage, Sage 50, QuickBooks, KashFlow, FreeAgent |
| Late fee grain | Yes (per customer group) | Yes (one set of late-fee rules) | No (via your ERP only) | No (none native) | Optional, added to reminder emails |
| Reminder grain | Per customer group | Per schedule, several schedules at once | Per workflow, sending once a day on business days | Company-wide only, 3 templates | Customizable emails and schedules, with customer grouping |
| Statements | Yes (any schedule) | Yes (monthly, fixed day) | Portal PDF statement, no scheduled send | None found | Yes |
| Payment plans | Yes (on Pro) | Yes | No | No | Not documented |
| Portal | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not documented |
| AI | Advanced Reads customer replies, drafts answers and follow-up actions (like PO updates) for your approval; MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and other agents | Advanced Collections and cash application agents, from suggest-only to autonomous (Collections Agent from Scale, Cash Application Agent from Accelerate) | None No AI in receivables (its AI agents are for payables) | None No AI feature found | |
| Rated (source, count) | 5.0 (84, Xero App Store) | 4.98 (374, Xero App Store) | 4.8 (235, G2) | 4.4 (1,806, G2) | 4.93 (92, Xero App Store) |
"Not documented" means the vendor does not document the capability. "Not published" means the vendor does not print a price. "None found" means no evidence either way. Prices are the vendor's published from-price.
The five tools in five checked facts
- Four of the five publish a starting price: Paidnice from £49 (US$69), Chaser from £199, BILL from US$49 per user and Satago from £45 a month (£25 inside Sage 50). Upflow quotes.
- Each published price grows with something different: invoice volume (Paidnice), revenue band (Chaser), users (BILL) and a flat tier (Satago).
- Three of the five apply a late fee themselves: Paidnice (per customer group), Chaser (one set of late-fee rules) and Satago (optional, added to reminder emails).
- All five connect to both Xero and QuickBooks Online.
- AI that handles collections work or customer replies: Paidnice and Upflow. No AI in receivables: BILL and Satago.
We checked each tool's own pricing, integration and help pages on October 26, 2026. "None found" in the data means the vendor's pages do not show the feature.
1. Paidnice, best for Xero or QuickBooks Online
Best for: Agencies on Xero or QuickBooks Online.
Any size up to $50m a year, or 50,000 invoices a year
What is Paidnice best for?
For a creative or marketing agency that wants reminder tone, late fee and statement schedule set per client group, so a retainer and a slow enterprise account are chased on different rules.
- Fits
- Agencies on Xero or QuickBooks Online of any size up to $50m a year, or 50,000 invoices a year, with or without a dedicated finance hire
- Regions
- United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa
- Entry cost
- £49 (US$69) a month on Essentials, covering 150 invoices, 600 emails and up to 2 team members; Pro from £74 (US$99) a month with unlimited users and no per-seat fee. Payment plans and sending from your own domain start on Pro.
- Rated
- 5.0 from 84 Xero App Store reviews; 4.9 from 14 on Capterra
- Awards
- Xero Global Small Business App of the Year 2025 and NZ Small Business App of the Year 2026
- Runs on
- Xero, QuickBooks Online, Stripe, Pinch Payments, CloudDepot, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zapier. Newer ledgers such as Rillet, Campfire, Digits, DualEntry, Puzzle, Accounting Seed and Odoo on every plan through the closed testing program. Sage Accounting, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, MYOB and Dynamics 365 Business Central on the Custom plan only
- Late fees and interest
- Yes. Two charge types available on the same customer group, an invoice late fee and a statement interest charge, both raised on the client's ledger as Draft or Approved. Compounding is on by default
- Does best
- Running several late fee policies at once, one per customer group, so a retainer group and a disputed-accounts group never share a rule
Paidnice sits on top of a Xero organisation or a QuickBooks Online company and covers what the ledger stops short of: reminder sequences, statements on whatever schedule the agency sets, consolidated parent accounts, payment plans on Pro, a client payment portal, and a charge raised on the client's ledger when an invoice runs late.
On Pro, mail leaves through the agency's own authenticated domain by email and SMS, so it reads as accounts@ rather than as a collections firm. Essentials sends from outbound@paidnice.com.
The mechanic that matters to an agency is the customer group. Policies hang off groups rather than off the company, so a retainer group, a project group and a group of accounts currently in dispute each run their own tone, their own fee rate and their own statement day at the same time.
A single invoice can be pulled out of a policy by its reference while the rest of that client keeps being chased, which is the exact shape of an argument about one line in a statement of work.
Charges are calculated on the balance after any credit note, and statement interest is recalculated as the statement sends rather than at the last policy run.
Limitations with Paidnice. Xero and QuickBooks Online are on every plan, and newer ledgers such as Rillet, Campfire, Digits, DualEntry, Puzzle, Accounting Seed and Odoo are available on every plan through Paidnice's closed testing program. Sage Accounting and other ERPs connect on the Custom plan, so an agency billing out of a project or practice system has to land its invoices in one of those ledgers before any of this applies.
NetSuite, Sage Intacct, MYOB and Dynamics 365 Business Central are a Custom-plan build rather than a standard connector, and a few payment features differ between the two ledgers. Essentials covers two team members.
Native credit checks score existing customers from their payment behavior, and Creditsafe bureau checks on a new client need the Custom plan.
2. Chaser, best for a named credit controller
Best for: Agencies with a named credit controller.
Under £4m of revenue on the entry tier
What is Chaser best for?
For an agency finance lead who wants email, SMS, letters and recorded calls in one schedule, plus a Creditsafe check on a new client before 60-day terms are agreed.
- Fits
- Agencies with a named credit controller; Compact is for revenue under £4m, Core from £4m and Complete to £100m
- Regions
- UK-registered, trading since 2014, sells worldwide
- Entry cost
- £199/mo on Compact for revenue under £4m with 4 users; Core £599/mo under £10m; Complete £899/mo to £100m.
- Rated
- 4.98 from 374 Xero App Store reviews; 4.3 from 71 on G2; 4.9 from 45 on Capterra
- Awards
- Finalist, UK Small Business App Partner of the Year, Xero Awards 2023
- Runs on
- Xero, QuickBooks, Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Intacct, Sage Business Cloud Accounting, NetSuite, Dynamics 365 Business Central, AccountsIQ, SAP, HubSpot, Gmail, Outlook
- Late fees and interest
- Yes. Four calculation types, recalculated daily, but one set of late-fee rules, across the account or for selected debtors, not tied to schedules, and no documented way to run different rules per group. No fee is raised on payment-plan invoices, and Chaser's help says a late fee cannot be added or updated after a part payment when written to Xero
- Does best
- Chasing on four channels from the team's own mailbox, with SMS, posted letters and recorded calls in the same schedule as the email
- Customers
- Named on its website: Wolfgang Digital, Glaze Digital and Lovebrands. Lovebrands' case study reports 15 hours saved every week.
A letter addressed to a client's accounts payable department lands on a different desk from a fifth email to the marketing manager who commissioned the work, and it gets there without the account director having to make the call.
The credit report inside the app comes from Creditsafe: a score with a recommended limit, the client's own payment score, credit event history, and Companies House filing and director data, monitored continuously. Chaser credit checks need Chaser billing, not Xero App Store billing, and monitoring is not offered in Australia.
Limitations with Chaser. It has one set of late-fee rules, across the account or for selected debtors, not tied to schedules, with no documented way to run different rules per group. It raises no fee on a payment-plan invoice, and its help says a late fee cannot be added or updated after a part payment when written to Xero, which on an agency book touches every account that paid a deposit. Statements go out monthly, on one fixed day.
Compact stops at four users. Chaser prices by revenue band, so winning one large retainer can move the subscription up a tier.
3. Upflow, best for collections by metric
Best for: Agencies that manage collections by metric.
Five gross invoice value tiers from up to $10m to above $100m
What is Upflow best for?
For an agency operations lead who wants countback DSO and collection effectiveness measured across the client book, and filtered by account manager, before anything is automated.
- Fits
- B2B finance teams that manage by metric, quoted in five tiers by gross invoice value, from up to $10m on Starter to above $100m on Enterprise
- Regions
- New York head office, Paris origin, customers in 30-plus countries
- Entry cost
- Not published. Upflow prints no figures and quotes five tiers by gross invoice value; Upflow offers a free Discover dashboard tier and a 14-day free trial on its Xero App Store listing; its pricing page lists no trial. Upflow's last published prices were $440 a month for Grow and $880 for Scale. Current prices are hidden and must be requested from Upflow
- Rated
- 4.8 from 235 G2 reviews; 4.5 from 15 on Capterra · Xero App Store listing
- Awards
- Not published
- Runs on
- Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Stripe Billing, Chargebee, Zuora
- Late fees and interest
- No, via your ERP only. Upflow's own documentation points the job back to the ERP and there is no native computation
- Does best
- Collections analytics, with countback DSO against best possible DSO, collection effectiveness and an at-risk rate above 90 days
- Customers
- Named on its website: Botify, Adikteev and PlayPlay. Botify's case study reports DSO cut by 22%.
Upflow is a measurement layer rather than an enforcement one, and on measurement it is the clearest tool here. Countback DSO against best possible DSO, collection effectiveness, at-risk balances above 90 days and billing-cohort cash forecasting all arrive on dashboards that can be filtered and emailed on a schedule.
One of those filters is the reason it belongs on an agency list at all. Cutting the dashboard by account manager turns a collections problem into a management one: the agency can see whose book is holding the cash rather than guessing, and take it to a one-to-one instead of to the client.
Limitations with Upflow. Fees get pushed back to the ERP, and an agency on Xero or QuickBooks Online has no ERP to push them to, so on criterion 2 it scores nothing. There are no payment plans, only client-initiated part payments and promises to pay.
Automated actions fire once a day and only on business days. Routing mail through your own SMTP switches off open and click tracking, and the QuickBooks link polls every five minutes with payments landing in Undeposited Funds for someone to reconcile manually. No price is printed at any tier.
4. BILL, best for freelancers and client chasing
Best for: Agencies paying a freelance bench and chasing clients in one place, priced per user.
What is BILL best for?
For an agency that pays a large contractor bench every month and wants payables and receivables on one platform, with ACH and card rails inside the invoice.
- Fits
- Agencies that already run payables at volume, mainly in the United States. No revenue band published; the product is priced per user
- Regions
- United States-centered, founded 2006 in San Jose, listed on the NYSE
- Entry cost
- $49 per user a month on Essentials, $65 on Team, $89 on Corporate, plus transaction fees of $0.59 an ACH payment and 2.9% on cards.
- Rated
- 4.4 from 1,806 G2 reviews; 4.1 from 563 on Capterra. Its Trustpilot score is 1.6 from 1,679 reviews, most of them about payment holds and support
- Awards
- Not published
- Runs on
- QuickBooks Online and Xero two-way from the Team tier; CSV import and export only on Essentials; NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Dynamics, Acumatica and QuickBooks Enterprise on Enterprise
- Late fees and interest
- No. Nothing is computed by BILL. Fees raised in QuickBooks Desktop sync in, and that is the whole of it
- Does best
- Payables and receivables on one platform, with ACH, card and mailed-check rails inside the invoice workflow
- Customers
- Named on its website (mostly payables): Marine Layer, KiwiCo and Spikeball.
BILL earns its place on this page through payables. Almost every agency of any size runs a freelance bench, and the platform that pays forty contractors on the first of the month is also raising the client invoice and pulling the ACH payment, which removes a second login and a second reconciliation from the month end.
The receivables half is much thinner. BILL's support documentation last showed reminders as three templates set once for the whole company, defaulted to 30, 60 and 90 days past due and switched off until somebody turns them on, and a reminder goes to every contact on any invoice carrying a balance, including one that has already been part paid.
Limitations with BILL. On receivables this is the smallest feature surface in the comparison: no late fees, no statements, no payment plans, no quote reminders, and three company-wide reminder templates with no per-client timing of any kind. Every AI agent shipped so far sits on the payables side.
Pricing is per seat, so an agency putting five people from finance and account management into the tool starts at $245 a month before transaction fees, and two-way ledger sync only begins one tier above the entry plan. The company announced cuts of up to 30% of its workforce under activist pressure, and receivables shows none of the investment.
5. Satago, best for credit data and finance
Best for: UK agencies that want credit data and invoice finance with their chasing, no revenue band published.
What is Satago best for?
For a UK agency in the Sage or Xero ecosystem that wants client credit reports and invoice finance from the same provider that runs its chasing.
- Fits
- UK agencies in the Sage and Xero ecosystem. No revenue band published
- Regions
- United Kingdom only
- Entry cost
- £25/mo Standard and £45/mo Plus inside Sage 50, with Plus included on selected Sage 50 subscriptions; standalone £45/mo Basic, £80 Premium, £200 Platinum. Satago offers a 14-day free trial.
- Rated
- 4.93 from 92 Xero App Store reviews, UK listing
- Awards
- Not published
- Runs on
- Xero, Sage, Sage 50, QuickBooks, KashFlow, FreeAgent
- Late fees and interest
- Optional. Late fees are calculated in line with statutory limits and added to payment reminders once an invoice is overdue
- Does best
- Client credit reports, credit scores and suggested credit limits bundled into the same subscription as the chasing, with invoice finance from the same provider
Satago runs two businesses inside one subscription: automated chasing and risk insight on the software side, single and full invoice finance on the lending side.
An agency carrying a 60-day gap between paying its freelancers and being paid by its clients is the customer the lending arm is written for, and that, rather than the chasing, is why it appears on an agency shortlist.
The cheapest way in is the edition inside Sage 50, where the Standard tier is £25 a month, and Sage states that Plus is included on selected Sage 50 subscriptions without naming which ones. The embedded bundle carries payment reminders, statements, customizable emails and schedules, and customer grouping.
Limitations with Satago. It sells in the United Kingdom and nowhere else, so an agency trading anywhere outside the UK cannot buy it at all.
Standalone Basic stops at 100 email reminders a month and does not list own-inbox sending, and reaching the agency's own inbox means the £80 Premium tier. Late fees are optional and added to payment reminders.
Do retainers and projects need different chase rules?
A retainer invoice and a project invoice go wrong in different ways, and an agency chasing both on one schedule will be too heavy with one and too slow with the other.
A retainer is predictable: same amount, same day, same approver, and a short reminder on day three recovers most late ones.
A project invoice is lumpy, tied to a milestone somebody has to agree was reached, and is the one still open at day 60 while two people argue about the brief. That invoice needs a longer, firmer ladder and a fee that arrives on time.
Deposits complicate both. An agency taking 50% upfront is raising two invoices against one project, each with its own due date, which is why the reminder rules carry more weight here than any installment feature does.
Chaser will split an invoice from weekly through to yearly, but its chasing stays pinned to the original invoice due date rather than to the installment dates, and its own documentation tells you to chase the installments manually.
When the overdue invoice is really a scope dispute
Plenty of overdue agency invoices are arguments about what the statement of work covered, and chasing an argument harder only makes it louder.
The tell is usually in the first reply. A slow payer answers, apologises and gives a date. A disputed invoice produces silence from the person who commissioned the work, a thread forwarded to somebody new, or a request for a call.
Pulling the whole client out of a policy also stops the chase on the clean invoices behind the disputed one, which is how an agency ends up writing off work nobody argued about. The right move is to exclude one invoice by its reference and leave the rest of the account running.
Against that test: Paidnice filters a single invoice out of a policy by its reference while the customer group keeps chasing everything else. Chaser works at schedule and account level, so holding one invoice means taking the account off the schedule.
The second question is what happens to a fee raised before the dispute surfaced. A fee posted to the ledger as a document can be credited, and the credit note is a record of the decision that both sides can see afterwards.
A fee held only inside a chasing tool cannot be credited, because it was never a receivable; it gets deleted, and the trail goes with it. For an agency that expects to trade a fee away during a renegotiation, that difference decides which tool is usable.
Who signs off a late fee in an agency
In the United States a late fee on an agency invoice is a contract term and nothing more. The rate has to sit in the signed engagement letter or master services agreement, inside whatever limit the client's state sets, before any of it can be charged. Agencies write the clause in often and charge it rarely.
The reason is governance rather than software. Charging manually means a named person deciding, client by client and month by month, whether this is the account to press, and that person usually answers to the account director whose retainer is on the line.
A policy removes the monthly decision. The rate and the trigger are agreed once, the agency tells its clients what they are, and after that nobody signs anything off. That is why the grain of the rule matters.
An agency that can set only one rule for every client will pitch it soft enough for its largest account and collect nothing from anybody, or pitch it properly and put the account it can least afford to lose at risk.
Paidnice gives an invoice fee and a statement charge running together on a policy per customer group, raised on the client's ledger as Draft or Approved. An agency that needs its biggest retainer on a gentler rate than its worst project client can only use the second shape.
The other reason to want the charge on the ledger is that it can be handed back. A fee sitting on the client's own books is something an agency can waive in writing, on the record, in exchange for the invoice being paid this week. A fee that was never raised buys nothing in that conversation.
What a fee is worth on one overdue project invoice
The arithmetic takes seconds, but it has to be redone per invoice, every month, for every client who slipped.
On $12,000 overdue for 45 days at 12% a year, the late fee is $177.53. Every further 30 days adds $118.36, and by 90 days overdue the fee reaches $355.07.
How much does agency AR software cost in 2026?
Published entry prices: Satago £45 a month (£25 inside Sage 50), BILL $49 per user, Paidnice £49 (US$69), Chaser £199. Upflow's last published prices were $440 a month for Grow and $880 for Scale. Current prices are hidden and must be requested from Upflow.
The headline is the least interesting number, because two of these models scale on an axis agencies move along quickly. BILL charges per seat, so putting five people from finance and account management into the tool is $245 a month at the entry tier before a single transaction fee.
Chaser bands by the agency's own revenue, so the bill steps up the month a big retainer lands rather than the month the invoice count rises.
Paidnice charges on invoice volume, flat, with no per-seat component, which is the model that survives hiring account managers. Satago's cheapest route is the edition embedded inside Sage 50.
Satago prints its tier prices but not which Sage 50 subscriptions carry Plus at no cost.
Where that lands, by the size of the agency:
- Under $1m. A short client list and no finance hire. Paidnice at £49 (US$69) a month if the fee matters as much as the reminder, or the reminder built into the accounting package if the nudge is all that is needed.
- $1m to $4m. Paidnice or Chaser. Chaser's Compact tier is £199 a month for revenue under £4m, with the team capped at four users, and credit checks are sold by credit on any plan.
- $4m to $20m. The real head-to-head. Paidnice for per-group policies and pricing that does not move with headcount, Chaser for bureau credit monitoring, letters and the deeper ledger list from £599 a month on Core.
- Above $20m. Upflow if nobody in the agency can currently say what DSO is, BILL if the contractor payment run costs more office time than the client chase, and Chaser Complete for agencies that want one system for everything.
Which AR software works with the ledger your agency already runs?
The accounting system already in place eliminates more of this list than the budget does.
- Xero. Paidnice, Chaser, Upflow and Satago all connect. BILL connects two ways from the Team tier at $65 per user, and Essentials is CSV only.
- QuickBooks Online. Paidnice, Chaser, Upflow and Satago again, with BILL from Team. Upflow's QuickBooks link is one way, polled every five minutes, and payments land in Undeposited Funds for someone to reconcile.
- Sage 50 and Sage 200. Satago and Chaser. Paidnice does not serve Sage 50 or Sage 200, so a Sage agency stops reading at those two.
- NetSuite and Sage Intacct. Upflow and Chaser, with BILL on Enterprise. Paidnice only gets to NetSuite, Sage Intacct, MYOB and Dynamics 365 Business Central through its Custom plan, and as a build rather than a connector.
Which accounts receivable software for agencies fits your use case?
| Use case | Start with | Why | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency on Xero or QuickBooks Online that needs a different rule per client group | Paidnice | Tone, fee rate and statement day per customer group, with one disputed invoice held by its reference | Xero, QuickBooks Online and newer ledgers such as Rillet and Campfire (closed testing) on every plan; Sage Accounting and other ERPs on Custom |
| Reminders and statements only, no late fees | Paidnice | Reminder sequences and statements per client group from £49 (US$69) a month; the fee policy is optional | Essentials covers two team members |
| Named credit controller who wants letters and credit checks | Chaser | Email, SMS, posted letters, recorded calls and a Creditsafe report in one schedule | One set of late-fee rules; no fee on payment-plan invoices, none added after a part payment (Xero) |
| Agency that wants DSO by account manager first | Upflow | Countback DSO and collection effectiveness, filtered by account manager | No late fees on Xero or QuickBooks Online, and no published price |
| Agency paying a large freelance bench | BILL | Payables and receivables on one platform, with ACH and card rails | No late fees, statements or payment plans; five seats cost $245 a month |
| UK agency on Sage that wants invoice finance | Satago | Credit reports and invoice finance beside the chasing, from £45 a month (£25 inside Sage 50) | United Kingdom only |
What agency principals ask before they buy
Which accounts receivable tool should an agency buy first?
On Xero or QuickBooks Online, Paidnice, because the tone, the fee policy and the statement schedule can all be set per customer group, so a retainer and a slow enterprise account run different rules at the same time, from $69 a month.
Where there is a named credit controller and the escalation needs letters and bureau credit checks in the same place, Chaser, from £199 a month. Check current pricing with the vendor before committing.
Will automated chasing cost us the client?
Only if the same wording goes to everybody. A single template applied across the book is what does the damage, because the five-year retainer receives the day-90 language written for a project client who has gone quiet.
Rules set per customer group, sent from the agency's own authenticated domain, read as the agency's normal process rather than as a collections agency arriving.
Can a late fee be charged without an account director approving it each month?
That is the whole point of a policy. Paidnice runs the rule per customer group and raises the charge on the client's ledger as Draft or Approved, with compounding on by default, so approval is a one-off decision rather than a monthly one.
Chaser applies four calculation types through one set of late-fee rules, across the account or for selected debtors, with no documented way to run different rules per group, and raises no fee on payment-plan invoices, while Upflow points the job at your ERP, BILL computes none and Satago adds an optional late fee to its reminder emails.
What does this cost once everyone has a login?
It depends on the pricing axis: BILL is $49 to $89 per user a month plus transaction fees, which multiplies with the team, while Paidnice is £49 (US$69) a month on Essentials with unlimited users from the Pro plans.
Chaser starts at £199 a month for revenue under £4m, and Satago is from £45 a month (£25 inside Sage 50). Upflow's last published prices were $440 a month for Grow and $880 for Scale. Current prices are hidden and must be requested from Upflow.
How do deposits, milestones and retainers get handled?
They get handled as whatever the ledger holds. A deposit, a milestone and a monthly retainer are three separate invoices in Xero or QuickBooks Online, and each one picks up the schedule and the fee rule attached to that client.
None of these tools writes the contract, so a deposit only arrives on time if somebody invoiced it in the first place.
Our accounting package already sends reminders. What does this add?
Xero sends up to five email reminders per invoice and QuickBooks Online up to three. Neither varies the wording by client group or reports on how collections are going by account manager. Xero cannot schedule statements (1,178 votes on its ideas board), and QuickBooks Online adds late fees in the US only, as a line on the invoice. The charge behind the reminder is what changes a client's mind about which supplier to pay first.
Which tools work with Xero and QuickBooks Online?
Paidnice, Chaser, Upflow and Satago all connect to both, and BILL syncs two ways from its $65 Team tier, with Essentials on CSV only.
For Sage 50 or Sage 200, only Satago and Chaser connect.
To compare the same tools for any business type, read the best credit control software guide, which sets out six tools by size, ledger and price.
People also read
Buyer's guide
Best accounts receivable software (by business type)
The pillar guide, with the whole field sorted by business size and accounting system.
Recruitment
Best AR software for recruitment firms
Seven tools against a weekly payroll run and a net-60 client.
By accounting system
Best AR software for Xero
Everything that connects to a Xero organisation, compared on what it does after the reminder.
Alternatives
Best Chaser alternatives
Six tools weighed against Chaser on fee grain, published price and review base.
Sources
11 sources, checked by Julie Turnbridge on November 3, 2026
- Xero Small Business Insights xero.com/resources/small-business-insights/latest-united-...
- Xero App Store apps.xero.com/uk/app/paidnice
- Capterra capterra.com/p/254868/Paidnice
- Xero App Store apps.xero.com/uk/app/chaser
- G2 g2.com/products/chaser/reviews
- Capterra capterra.com/p/157101/CHASER
- G2 g2.com/products/upflow-upflow/reviews
- Capterra capterra.com/p/193097/Upflow
- Xero App Store listing apps.xero.com/us/app/upflow
- G2 g2.com/products/bill-ap-ar/reviews
- Capterra capterra.com/p/166559/BILL
