ChatGPT for invoices: create, track and chase them

Yes, as a draft. Give it the details and ask for a layout you can paste into a document or your invoicing tool. It will not number invoices for you, keep a record of them or send them, so the invoice still has to live in your accounting system for tax and bookkeeping.

Create a simple B2B invoice I can paste into a document.
From: [Your business name], [Address], [Tax ID if you have one]
To: [Customer name], [Billing address], PO [PO number if they gave one]
Invoice number: [Invoice number], dated [Date], due [Due date] ([Payment terms])
Lines: [Description, quantity, unit price] for each item
Add sales tax at [Rate] if it applies, a total, and payment instructions: [How to pay].
Plain layout, no logo, no extra wording.

Check every figure it gives back. A language model can add up wrongly, and an invoice with the wrong total is the start of a dispute rather than a payment. Our guide to invoice numbers covers how to number them so customers and your books can match them up.

It can write the message. You still decide when to send it, who it goes to and whether the invoice is still unpaid.

Write a short, polite email to a business customer about an overdue invoice.
Invoice [Invoice number] for [Amount] was due on [Due date] and is now [Number] days late.
Ask them to confirm a payment date. Under 90 words, no exclamation marks, no threats.
Sign off as [Your name].

When the customer replies, paste the reply in with names removed and ask ChatGPT what it means: already paid, a dispute, a promise to pay, a request for something such as a PO or a copy of the invoice, or a wrong contact. Then ask for a reply that fits. Our page on asking for payment politely has more wording to work from, and our guide to an AI collections agent covers where this approach runs out.

The limit is that ChatGPT only knows what you paste in. It does not know which invoices are overdue today, who promised to pay on Friday or whether the money arrived this morning. For a handful of late invoices that is fine. Past that, the copying in and out becomes the job.

ChatGPT has a plugin directory. A plugin lets ChatGPT read from, and sometimes act on, another service you have an account with. You install it once, sign in to that service, and approve what it can see.

For overdue invoices, The AR Agent has a plugin in the directory. To add it:

1. In ChatGPT, open Plugins and search for The AR Agent, or open The AR Agent in the ChatGPT plugin directory.
2. Choose Install plugin.
3. Sign in to The AR Agent and press Allow. Nothing is shared before you do.

It needs an AR Agent account connected to QuickBooks or Xero and to your inbox, because that is where it reads the invoices and the conversation with each customer. You can remove the connection at any time from ChatGPT's settings.

Ask in plain words, as you would ask a colleague who knows the ledger.

• "Who owes me money?" A list of overdue invoices with the amount, the currency and how many days late each one is.
• "Why hasn't [Customer] paid?" The state of that customer's case: what was sent, what they last said, and anything blocking payment, such as a missing PO or a wrong contact.
• "Who has promised to pay this week?" Payment dates customers have given, and whether they kept them.
• "Chase [Customer]." The agent writes the follow-up from the full history and leaves it in the app for you to approve.

The plugin reads, and it can ask for a draft. It cannot send an email, approve a draft or change anything in your accounting system. That is deliberate. The checks that matter happen when a message is sent, such as whether a payment arrived in the meantime, and they run in the app, not in the chat.

Treat it like any outside service. If you paste invoices or emails into a chat, you are sharing that data with the assistant's provider, so check your contracts, privacy policy and company rules first. Placeholders avoid the question.

With a plugin, you decide what to connect and can see what it asks for before you press Allow. Information the assistant receives is handled by its provider under that provider's terms. Read what the plugin can do, not only what it can read: a plugin that can send email or edit records needs more care than one that drafts for you to review.