When the client says the check is in the mail

A check in the mail is a claim, not a payment. The invoice stays open until the check is in your hand and it clears. The note should make it easy to confirm the check is real, without accusing them of making it up.

Ask for three things: the check number, the amount, and the date it was mailed. Those are ordinary details from a checkbook. Someone who mailed a check can answer in one line. Someone who is buying time usually can’t.

Say what you’ll do when it arrives: you’ll apply it to this invoice. Give a date, about a week out, for when you’ll write again if it hasn’t landed. Mail gets delayed. A week is enough to tell a slow check from a story.

Don’t add a fee in this note, and don’t threaten to undo the work. If that date passes with no check and no check number, send the second ask. If they want more work while the invoice is still open, pause the work. If the job is already finished and the check never shows, send the final reminder.

Copy this and change the names, the amount, and the dates.

Subject: Invoice 1842 — confirming the check

Hi Priya,

Thanks for saying a check is on the way for invoice 1842. It is $1,800 for the March furnace replacement, due March 1. It has not arrived.

Please reply with the check number, the amount, and the date it was mailed. I will apply it to this invoice when it gets here.

If I don’t have it by March 15, I will write again.

Jordan Hale
Hale Heating