4 best accounts receivable software for non-profits in 2026

The four best accounts receivable tools for UK non-profits in 2026 are Paidnice, Chaser, Satago and Kolleno, ranked on whether the tool can chase a funder under one rule and a trading customer under another, and at what grain. Prices from £25 a month.

Paidnice suits a charity on Xero or QuickBooks Online that wants a gentle policy on funders and a firm one on trading customers, running at the same time. Chaser suits a larger charity with a named credit controller that wants credit checking alongside its chasing. Satago pairs chasing with credit reports and UK invoice finance, which is the answer when a council sits on an invoice. Kolleno serves order-to-cash teams above $1m. None of them is built for the charity sector, so every entry here is judged on fit rather than on a sector badge.

Related guides: the best credit control software UK, how to chase overdue invoices, how to choose credit control software for Xero

How we ranked, and why sector fit comes first

None of these four was built for charities, so each is judged on fit rather than on a sector badge. Five tests, run against every tool in the order printed here, with the payer question first because it is the one the sector actually differs on.

1. Sector fit. Does the tool serve an organisation of charity size, at a price a finance officer can put in front of trustees?
2. Segmentation grain. Can a funder, a member and a commercial customer be chased under different rules at the same time, or does one setting apply to everybody?
3. Published or verified entry price, in the vendor's own currency and carrying the date it was read, because a finance officer taking a subscription to a board meeting needs a figure that can go in the paper.
4. A score we could trace back to its platform, with the count beside it. A tenth of a point between two scores decides nothing, so the larger verified review base takes the higher place.
5. Ledger coverage, meaning the accounting ledger the charity keeps its books on, which in this sector is Sage far more often than the software market assumes.

Non-profit accounts receivable software compared: the table

Paidnice is the only tool here that runs a separate charging policy per customer group. Chaser gives separate chase schedules with one global fee rule behind them, Satago adds credit data and invoice finance, and Kolleno sits above the sector on price.

Satago carries "Not verified" in four cells here, because nothing published for it documents a fee, an instalment schedule, a portal or a review score we could trace to a primary source. Read "Not published" as a vendor that puts no price in public and "None found" as a search that produced nothing in either direction. The prices are from-prices the vendors printed themselves, dated. And none of these four was built for the charity sector, so this is general software measured against non-profit needs.

Three payers, three rules: funders, commissioners and trading customers

A charity ledger is not one ledger. It carries three kinds of income that arrive under three different legal arrangements, and each one wants a different answer to the question of what happens when the money is late.

A grant funder is a partner, and grant income is conditional rather than dated, so the concept of arrears does not really apply. A commissioning body is a certain payer on an uncertain timetable, where the invoice is not at risk but escalating against it can cost the next contract. A trading customer, whether that is room hire, a training course or the trading subsidiary invoicing a business, is an ordinary commercial debtor with no special claim on the charity at all.

A grant funder is not a debtor

A grant falls due when a condition is met, not when a date passes, so an unmet milestone sitting on the ledger looks exactly like an overdue invoice to software that only reads dates. The failure mode is a reminder arriving at a funder about money the charity has not yet earned. Keep grant and milestone income out of the automated chasing altogether, or park it in a group with the chasing switched off, and check that decision every time a new award is coded.

The practical consequence is that one setting cannot serve all three. Every tool below can chase. What separates them is whether the chasing rule, the tone and the charge can be attached to the payer type rather than to the organisation.

The sector question is not whether a charity may charge for lateness. It is which of its three payers should ever see the charge, and that is a decision the board takes rather than the finance office.

What a trustee-approved chasing policy has to contain

In a trading business the escalation ladder is a setting somebody in finance chose. In a charity it is a document, approved by trustees, defended at audit and quoted back at the finance officer the first time a funder complains. That is the single biggest difference between this page and every other comparison in the category.

An automated final notice reaching a long-standing funder is a reputational event, and a trustee will hear about it before the finance officer does. So the policy has to be written before the software is configured, and it has to say four things. Which payer types are chased automatically and which are handled by a named person. What the wording escalates to, and where it stops, for each of those types. Who authorises an exception, and how that exception is recorded. And whether interest is ever charged, against which payer, and who signs it off.

Then the software has to be able to hold it. A policy that distinguishes funders from trading customers is unenforceable in a tool with one global setting, because the only compliant configuration is to switch the strict half off for everybody. That is why the grain question on this page is a governance question rather than a convenience one: the tool either lets the approved policy run as written, or it quietly forces the charity to run a weaker one.

Two smaller things belong in the same document. Tone is auditable, so keep the sent copy: a dated record of what was sent to whom is the evidence that the approved wording was the wording used. And the charge, if there is one, should be capable of being raised in draft and approved by a person before it reaches a payer, which is the difference between a policy with a control in it and a policy with a switch in it.

Can a charity charge statutory interest, and on which invoices

The question resolves on the payer, not on the charity. Charitable status changes nothing about the entitlement, because the entitlement attaches to the supply rather than to the supplier. Two of the four tools here compute the charge: Paidnice as a base rate policy per customer group, Chaser as the same calculation behind one global rule. Kolleno documents no interest mechanic and Satago's could not be verified.

Take the three payers in turn. A grant is not a commercial debt at all, so nothing under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 applies to it, and no software setting changes that. A commissioned service is a business-to-business supply, so the entitlement does apply, and a charity invoicing a local authority has exactly the same right to interest at 8% a year over the Bank of England base rate as any contractor. And the trading subsidiary invoicing a commercial customer is simply a company invoicing a company, with the fixed sum of £40, £70 or £100 by size of debt claimable on top. The base rate stood at 3.75% in mid-2026, making the total 11.75%, and it moves, so read the current one on GOV.UK before it goes on an invoice.

Being entitled and being willing are separate questions, and the second one is where most charities stop. Invoicing a commissioner for interest is legally clean and commercially expensive, because the same relationship is up for renewal. Invoicing a trading customer is neither. So the useful configuration is interest live on the trading group and switched off everywhere else, which is a charge a finance officer can also waive in writing in return for settlement this week. A charge that was never raised has nothing to concede.

What is settled law, and what is still a bill

Two entitlements a charity can rely on this morning against a commercial or commissioned payer, and one that is still going through Parliament.

Statutory interest

Available on a commissioned or trading invoice, never on a grant. The rate runs 8% over the Bank of England base rate, which put the total at 11.75% in mid-2026 and moves whenever the base rate does, so read it again before the invoice goes out. GOV.UK

Fixed compensation

A flat sum per invoice on top of the interest, banded by the size of the debt at £40, £70 and £100, and claimable by a charity on the same basis as by anyone else. GOV.UK

Mandatory interest

A bill rather than an entitlement. If the Commercial Payments Bill passes as drafted, statutory interest stops being a default that a contract can waive and becomes compulsory, which would remove a clause some commissioners currently insert. Check where it has reached before anything is built on it.

Interest on the subsidiary, none on the funder

Both document a base rate calculation, so the arithmetic is not what separates them. The question a charity has to answer is whether the software can hold two different answers for two different payers at the same moment.

Chaser cannot. Its rule is global, unable to vary by schedule or by customer group, so switching interest on for the trading subsidiary switches it on for the funders in the same action, and the only safe configuration for a charity is to leave it off. It also raises no fee on a payment-plan or partially paid invoice, which quietly excludes a phased commissioning settlement. Paidnice can, because policies hang under customer groups: interest runs on the trading group at base rate plus your percentage, calculated per period so an invoice spanning two base rates is charged correctly, while the funder group carries none, and both states exist on the same ledger at the same time. The charge is raised as Draft or Approved, which is the control a board will ask for.

Behind the single rule Chaser has four calculation types recalculated daily, which is a capable engine aimed at one rate for every payer on the ledger, funders included. Paidnice offers an invoice-level fee and a statement-level charge available together on the same group, with several policies live at once. Neither Kolleno nor Satago computes anything here, so on both of those the entitlement stays a spreadsheet and a manual credit note.

Chasing a council that has your invoice and a 30-day policy

The public-sector invoice is the most misdiagnosed receivable a charity holds. It is not disputed, it is not at risk and the payer is not short of money. It is queued, behind a portal, a purchase order number and an approval that has not happened yet.

Which is why the standard escalation ladder does nothing to it. A reminder addressed to a named officer reaches somebody who has no involvement in the payment run. A firmer reminder reaches the same person. A final notice reaches them again and is forwarded, with a comment, to the commissioning manager who decides on the next contract, which is the one outcome the charity was trying to avoid. The authority publishes a 30-day payment policy and is probably reporting against it, and none of that has any bearing on where your invoice currently sits.

What actually moves a queued invoice is administrative rather than persuasive. The purchase order number has to be on the invoice, in the field the portal reads, because a mismatch there is the single most common reason an invoice is parked. The statement, rather than the reminder, is the document an authority acts on, because it shows the whole account rather than one line. Many authorities publish their own prompt-payment performance, which is a fact that can be quoted politely. And the person who can unstick it is usually the commissioning manager rather than accounts payable, which is exactly the person the escalation ladder should never have reached.

None of the four tools on this page models any of that. There is no purchase order validation, no portal read, no authority-specific route. What they can do is keep a dated evidence trail, which is worth more here than pressure is: a record of when the invoice was sent, when the statement went, what was said and to whom, ready for the moment somebody at the authority asks for proof. Treat the tool as documentation on a commissioning contract, not as leverage.

The one collections mechanic that does fit a commissioner is a phased settlement. Where an authority agrees to clear a backlog across several months, Paidnice sets the instalment schedule against the invoice and takes the payments through Stripe or Pinch Payments, and Kolleno splits weekly, monthly or bi-monthly with automations linked to the plan, though uneven totals are divided by hand. Chaser will split the invoice weekly through to yearly but keeps chasing the original due date rather than the instalment dates, and its own documentation advises chasing the instalments manually. No instalment function is documented for Satago at all. Note the distinction from invoice finance while you are here: an instalment plan leaves the receivable and the risk with the charity, where a finance provider advances against the invoice and takes a fee, which is borrowing and therefore a board decision.

Where the receivables tool stops and fund accounting starts

Two jobs, one ledger, and a boundary worth being clear about before a demonstration. Chasing what has been invoiced, charging for the wait, issuing the statement and taking the payment is one job. Tracking restricted against unrestricted income and reporting it under the Charities SORP is the other, and nothing on this page does the second one.

The Charity Commission register for England and Wales runs past 160,000 organisations, and the smaller ones keep their books on the same ledgers a trading business uses. There is no separate software category waiting for them, which is why this shortlist is a general one and why the whole comparison turns on the payer rather than on the product.

• Reminders with wording per payer type: scheduled email and SMS before and after the due date, worded the way the approved policy says for that group.
• A live read of the ledger: so the chase stops the day the money lands and no funder is ever chased for a grant already banked.
• Segmentation that survives an audit: groups or schedules that keep the commissioned-services account on one ladder and the grant funder off it entirely.
• Statements on a schedule: the account summary, which is more often than not the only document a slow public-sector payer responds to.
• A page the payer can serve themselves from: view the invoice, pull the statement, pay, or start a schedule, without a message reaching anybody.

Restricted funds never leave the charity ledger

Income recognition tightens under the 2026 Charities SORP, and no receivables tool in this comparison tracks restricted against unrestricted at all. That reporting stays in the ledger or the fund-accounting system that already produces it. What the receivables tool owns is narrower and worth being precise about: the chasing, the charge and the statement.

By income band, and what a small charity can actually approve

Read this band by what a board will sign rather than by what the organisation could theoretically afford. A subscription that has to be justified against restricted-funds pressure is a different purchase from one that comes out of a trading budget.

• Under £500k. The ledger's own reminders often are enough, and if they are not, Satago inside Sage 50 at £25 is the cheapest step past them and the easiest to put in a paper. Paidnice at £49 if funders and trading customers need different rules from the first month.
• £500k to £4m. Usually the band where a trading arm becomes material. Paidnice for per-group policies on a flat price, or Chaser at £199 if there is a named credit controller and the credit checking is genuinely being used.
• £4m to £20m. Paidnice against Chaser, decided on one question: whether the approved policy needs interest on some payers and not others. If it does, the global rule cannot deliver it. If it does not, Chaser at £599 on Core buys monitoring and a deeper ledger list.
• Above £20m. Kolleno when allocating grant tranches and bulk public-sector remittances is the real bottleneck rather than the chasing, or Chaser's Complete tier to keep everything on one system.

Sage, Xero and the fund-accounting ledgers nobody connects to

Start with the honest gap. A charity on a dedicated fund-accounting system has no option on this page at all, because none of the four connects to one. What the four connect to is the general ledger, so the question is which one your books sit on.

• Xero. All four connect. A Xero organisation already using tracking categories for funds keeps that reporting exactly where it is and bolts the chasing on above it.
• QuickBooks Online. All four again, with class tracking doing the same job Xero categories do.
• Sage 50 and Sage 200. A large slice of the sector sits here, and the list shortens sharply: Satago embedded at £25 a month, and Chaser. Paidnice does not serve Sage at all, which removes the per-group charging option from any charity on it.
• NetSuite and Sage Intacct. Kolleno, and Chaser on NetSuite. Paidnice reaches NetSuite, Sage Intacct, MYOB and Dynamics 365 Business Central on its Custom plan only, as a build rather than a connector, so budget it as a project.

What this costs against a restricted-funds budget

The awkward part of this purchase is that it is core cost. Chasing income is support, not delivery, so it is paid for out of unrestricted funds or out of a thin allocation, and every pound is visible. Published UK entry prices in August 2026: Satago £25 inside Sage 50, Paidnice £49, Chaser £199, and Kolleno at $650 per user. Not one of the four publishes a charity rate.

The metric matters more here than in any commercial sector, because charity income and charity capacity move independently. Chaser prices on turnover, so a single large restricted grant can push an organisation into a higher tier while adding nothing at all to the unrestricted budget the subscription is paid from. Kolleno prices per user, so a finance office of three multiplies the bill by three before anything is chased.

Paidnice prices on invoice volume, flat, with no per-seat charge, which behaves best for a finance function staffed by part-timers and volunteers who each need a login. Satago is cheapest through Sage rather than through its own app, and Sage says the Plus tier is included with selected Sage 50 subscriptions without publishing which ones, so the real floor for a Sage charity may be lower than the £25 printed here and cannot be confirmed.

Questions charity finance officers ask

What comes up when a finance officer takes this to a board: whether a charity-specific product exists at all, what the entitlement to interest really covers, and how to chase a public-sector payer without spending the relationship.

Who publishes this page, and what it is checked against

Accounting.Events publishes this page. No vendor bought a place on it or a position in it, the order comes from published vendor pricing and verified third-party reviews, and every price and score is dated to the day it was last read.

The five tests at the head of the page are applied in the printed order to each of the four tools. Segmentation grain sits second, above price, which is why a charity will find the ranking here different from a general receivables comparison: the ability to run one rule on funders and another on trading customers is the sector requirement, and price only separates tools that clear it.

Anything that cannot be scored across all four is written as a fact inside the entry that has it rather than used to sort the list. Satago is the clearest case: neither its rating nor its fee handling could be verified, so neither counted for or against it. So is the question this page cares most about, since no vendor documents how its chasing behaves against a grant milestone, which is argued in prose above and scored nowhere.

Prices come off each vendor's own pricing page in the currency printed there, never converted. Ratings come from the Xero App Store, G2 and Capterra with the count and the platform named. A vendor that publishes nothing gets a cell saying nothing was published, rather than an estimate. The page went through a full check in August 2026 and goes through another whenever it is updated.

Related reading for charity finance teams

Buyer's guide

Best credit control software UK

Six credit control systems compared on statutory interest and reviews.

Getting paid

How to chase overdue invoices

The sequence, the channels, and when to escalate.

Templates

Overdue invoice email templates

Five copy-paste emails from a friendly nudge to a final notice.

UK law

Late payment fees in the UK

The complete guide to the law, the rate and what is changing.