Follow up on unpaid and overdue Joist invoices

1. On iPhone, tap Payments in the bottom navigation bar to open the Overview, then View All to see every due invoice.
2. Invoices past their payment terms carry an Overdue badge in the invoice list; the terms come from Payment Terms (Days) under Settings > Doc Settings on the web (Settings > Documents on iPhone).
3. To nudge a client, swipe left on the invoice and tap Send Reminder, or on the web open the invoice, click Payments and then Send payment reminder, edit the prefilled email and send.
4. Each reminder goes out one invoice at a time, and adding up what one client owes across several partly paid invoices is left to you.

Every Monday, list who owes me money in Joist, oldest first, and draft a reminder for each client more than 7 days overdue.

1. 01

   Read every open invoice

   The agent pages through list_invoices in the active view with the cursor until the list ends, so a long tail of old invoices is not cut off at the first page.

2. 02

   Total by client and age

   Invoices are grouped by client, split into overdue and not yet due by their due date, and sorted oldest first. A partly paid invoice counts only its balance due.

3. 03

   Hold back the ones to leave alone

   Before drafting anything the agent opens each overdue invoice with get_document. An invoice with a payment recorded in the last few days, or a balance below the minimum you set, is listed but gets no reminder.

4. 04

   One reminder per client

   For a client with several overdue invoices it drafts one email on the oldest invoice that names the others and the total. send_document sends it only after your OK, and a client with no email on file is reported with the amount so you can call.

Open invoices: 9, $14,630.00 owed by 6 clients
Overdue: 4 invoices, $6,210.00
Oak Ridge HOA: #1036 $1,450.00, 41 days overdue; #1044 $980.00, 9 days overdue
Henderson family: #1052 $2,180.00 left of $4,180.00, 18 days overdue
Priya Nair: #1049 $1,600.00, 3 days overdue (under 7 days, no reminder)
Not yet due: 5 invoices, $8,420.00
Reminders drafted for Oak Ridge HOA and Henderson family, waiting for your OK

• Joist sets an invoice due date as the creation date plus Payment Terms (Days), and the default of 0 days prints Due upon receipt with the due date equal to the document date.
• Joist shows the Overdue badge until a payment is collected or recorded, so a check sitting unrecorded in the truck keeps the client on the overdue list.
• The Joist reminder email reaches the client with a link to the invoice, and the prefilled text can be edited before it goes out.
• Joist Reports refresh overnight and only include data entered after 1 September 2022, so a payment recorded today shows in a report tomorrow.

send_document asks for your OK by default. To run it weekly without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: Joist Help Center: request payment for an overdue invoice · Joist Help Center: add payment terms to an invoice · Joist Help Center: understanding your Joist Reports data · Joist: invoicing features

curl https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/joist/list_invoices \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"view":"active","limit":100}'

{
  "invoices": [
    {
      "invoice_id": "inv_58213",
      "number": "1042",
      "client": "Mark Ruiz",
      "total": 2400,
      "amount_paid": 1200,
      "balance_due": 1200,
      "due_on": "2026-10-01",
      "overdue": true,
      "email_opened": true,
      "signed": true
    }
  ],
  "next_cursor": null
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the tool is joist_list_invoices. Example data.

• Create Joist estimates from a job description
• Turn signed Joist estimates into invoices
• Record check and cash payments on Joist invoices
• Joist API and MCP server: every tool
• All use cases