Digital collection and reminder

Netherlands Institute for Public Safety

Automatic follow-up of outstanding invoices. The system sends structured payment reminders (e-mail, SMS or letter) according to preset rules,

Last change on 7th of November 2025, at 13:05 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Public finance

Begin date

Field not filled in.

Contact information

[e-mail]

Link to publication website

https://nipv.nl

Responsible use

Goal and impact

Relieving employees from manually creating e-mail or letters of reminder and reminder for outstanding invoices. It leads to better invoice follow-up. For stakeholders, it means timely reminders of outstanding invoices, preventing non-payment and collection costs.

Considerations

It helps make debtor management more efficient, faster and customer-friendly, leading to a healthier financial situation and less workload for staff. Affected parties receive timely reminders to avoid collection costs. In general, our organisation only deals with invoices to companies, institutions and public authorities and not directly to citizens.

Human intervention

Human control is possible (even afterwards). However, this is a simple business rule that sends a reminder based on triggers. If the data subject questions this, it will always be assessed by a human.

Risk management

The main risk is unauthorised access to financial data. Good security and reliability are essential here.

Legal basis

Legal obligation: e-Invoicing Directive (2014/55/EU)

Legitimate interest: The organisation has a legitimate interest in efficient, error-free and secure invoice processing and collection handling

Links to legal bases

• Directive (2014/55/EU): https://wetten.overheid.nl/EUR20140055
• Act of 20 December 2017, amending the Procurement Act 2012 and the Defence and Security Procurement Act in connection with the implementation of Directive 2014/55/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on electronic invoicing in public procurement: https://www.eerstekamer.nl/behandeling/20180112/publicatie_wet_3/document3/f=/vkkx3ifxcfxq.pdf

Operations

Data

• Customer identification
• contact details
• Invoice and payment information
• Communication history
• Collection costs and interest
• Security and audit log data

Technical design

The system works like this: first, the programme retrieves outstanding invoices from the accounting or ERP system via an API link or a CSV import. This data (customer name, invoice number, amount, due date, e-mail or phone) is checked and put into its own database. Then, based on set time intervals (e.g. 7 days after the due date), a rule engine determines which reminder should be sent and through which channel (e-mail, text message or a letter). The content of the message is automatically populated with the customer and invoice details and sent via an external mail or SMS provider.

When the customer pays, the payment provider sends a notification back to the system. The system compares the amount received with the outstanding invoice, closes the case and notes this in an audit log. If there is no payment, the next reminder step follows or an escalation to a collection agency. Everything is done securely (TLS encryption, role-based access) and you can track the status of all files in real-time in a dashboard.

External provider

Proactis