How RankRise uses prompt payment discounts to get paid in a day
A small discount for fast payment, delivered by automated reminders, turned RankRise's collections into same-day cash flow.
The payment backlog cleared in under a month; SMS reminders see a 95% open rate.
Watch Will tell it · 3:44
RankRise, a fast-growing digital marketing agency in Melbourne, had the problem every agency knows: invoices going out, payments trickling in late, and the founder handling every follow-up.
Will Qu was sending monthly reminders by hand, and the automated Xero reminders that were meant to help were landing in clients' junk mail. Every hour spent on collections was an hour not spent delivering results. Today, Will gets paid the day he sends an invoice, something he'd never seen in his industry.
The stakes: energy in the wrong place
Managing cash flow is hard enough without following up every payment by hand. For a founder-led agency, the cost wasn't only the late cash, it was where Will's attention was going.
"Before Paidnice, collecting and chasing payments was manual. I had to send monthly reminders about outstanding balances, but the automated Xero reminders often went to clients' junk mail."
Late payments and payment friction were draining the energy Will would rather have spent on his clients' results. The follow-up was relentless, and it wasn't even landing.
The diagnosis: two problems hiding as one
On the surface, clients were simply paying late. Underneath, two separate things were going wrong at once:
The automated reminders were going to junk, so for many clients the nudge never arrived. Sending from your own domain fixes this at the source.
Even when reminders landed, nothing rewarded a client for paying now rather than later.
Following up harder solves neither. A reminder in the spam folder can't be actioned, and a client with no incentive has no reason to move you up the queue.
The shift: from following up to incentivizing
Frustrated with the time collections were eating, Will went looking for a tool to automate accounts receivable and found Paidnice recommended repeatedly on Xero's community forums. What drew him in was the idea of automating the entire post-invoice flow, then flipping the dynamic entirely: instead of pushing clients to pay, give them a small, genuine reason to pay early.
"I love that it's all automatic, late fees, SMS and email reminders, discounts. Once you turn on the settings, everything works seamlessly without any effort."
The implementation: a set-and-forget AR stack
RankRise switched on a complete accounts receivable automation layer on top of Xero, with each piece doing one job:
- A 5% prompt payment discount for paying within 7 days
The lever that changed client behavior.
- Branded email reminders from Will's own domain
They actually reach the inbox instead of junk.
- SMS reminders
Open rates around 95%.
- Late fee warnings
Sent ahead of any fee being applied.
- Automated monthly statements
Outstanding balances, shown without being asked.
Once the settings were on, the whole sequence ran without Will touching it.
The results
Before Paidnice
Will followed up by hand between client work.
Unpaid invoices had stacked up.
Email-only nudges, easily missed.
After Paidnice
"We went from chasing payments to getting paid same-day."
A small prompt payment discount did the pulling.
Branded sends from RankRise's own domain.
Within a month of setup, Will had cleared his backlog and started getting paid the day he issued future invoices.
"We went from chasing payments to getting paid same-day. I've never seen anything like it!"
Mental bandwidth back for the big picture
With cash flow on autopilot, Will reclaimed the energy he'd been spending on collections.
"Not worrying about payments lets me focus on strategy, with confidence our cash flow will take care of itself."
The verdict
"It's perfect set-and-forget automation. We went from chasing payments to getting paid the same day we invoice out, I've never seen anything like it!"
For Will, the maths is simple: time saved on follow-ups, cash stress removed, and attention back on the work that grows the agency.
"Paidnice saves me time on follow ups, takes away cash stress, and lets me focus on clients. It's a no brainer!"
RankRise is a fast-growing digital marketing agency based in Melbourne, Australia.
