Lagoda is an AI chief of staff you talk to in a messenger. You tell it who owes you and how much, by voice note or text. It keeps a list of what you're owed, and on the schedule you set it drafts the next reminder, waiting on your ok before anything goes out. You see who paid, who went quiet, and how many days each one is late, all in one thread.
It answers only to you, and it never sends the reminder on its own. A draft sits there until you press send. That's the whole loop. The rest of this page is how it plays out, and where it fits.
The money that just sits there
You did the work. You sent the invoice. Then it slipped off the top of your head, because a supplier called and a truck was late and by evening you forgot the invoice ever went out. Two weeks later you notice the money still isn't in.
Now you're stuck between two bad options. Let it ride and hope they pay, which sometimes means they never do. Or write the awkward "any update on this?" email, which you keep pushing to tomorrow because chasing your own money feels like begging. So the invoice sits. And the longer it sits, the harder it gets to bring up, and the more it fades into a client who half forgot they owe you at all.
For a one-person shop or a small crew, that's real cash stuck in limbo. Not a rounding error on a big AR sheet. It's the payment that covers payroll, or the one that lets you breathe this month.
How common this is, in numbers
It helps to know you're not the only one running a business on money somebody else is holding.
The Intuit QuickBooks 2026 Small Business Late Payments Report, published in July 2026, found that 59% of small businesses have at least some invoices overdue by 30 days or more. A year earlier that figure was 47%, so the problem got worse by twelve points in twelve months.
The same report puts the average amount owed at $17,700 per business waiting on unpaid invoices, roughly flat against $17,500 the year before. The money isn't growing. The share of owners stuck waiting for it is.
Read those two numbers together and the picture is plain. Nearly three in five owner-run businesses are carrying somebody else's cash-flow problem, and for the average one it's the size of a used van sitting in someone else's account.
The reason it stays stuck is rarely refusal. Most late invoices are late because nobody asked again, and nobody asked again because asking is the job everybody avoids.
How long you have to chase it
An old invoice feels dead. In law it sits alive for years, and how long depends on where you are.
California gives you four years on a written contract, Code of Civil Procedure section 337. New York gives six, CPLR 213. England and Wales give six too, Limitation Act 1980 section 5, counted from the date the cause of action accrued. Same debt, different clocks.
Clock starts when payment came due, not when you sent the invoice. Partial payment can restart it, so a client who pays two hundred on a four thousand dollar bill hands you a fresh window.
Two things follow. That invoice from last spring may still be collectable, so stop writing it off in your head. And chasing early has nothing to do with deadlines. People pay recent bills and argue about old ones.
Check the rule where you are before you act on any of this. It differs by state, and this page isn't legal advice.
Why the usual fixes don't stick
A spreadsheet remembers, but only if you open it. The reminder to chase still lives in your head, so the spreadsheet is one more thing to check, not one less thing to do.
A bookkeeper once a week is better, but it's a lag. The client who went dark on Monday hears nothing until Friday, and by then it's a bigger, colder conversation.
Manual email works when you send it. You don't, because the awkward ones are the ones you skip, and the awkward ones are usually the ones that owe you the most.
A to-do app pings you. That's the trap. It hands the job back to you at a bad moment, when you're driving or on a call, and you swipe it away. It reminds. It doesn't do.
How Lagoda does it, step by step
1. You tell it who owes you. A voice note between meetings works. "Whitman owes me fourteen three, invoice went out the first, chase them if nothing lands by the fifteenth." Or you type it. Lagoda logs the name, the amount, the date, and the terms you gave it.
2. It tracks what you're owed. Everyone you flag sits in one list, called receivables. You ask "who still owes me" and it answers in a line: three clients, forty-one grand out, two already replied. No dashboard to open, no columns to sort.
3. It chases on your schedule. You set the rhythm. Three days after the due date, then weekly, or whatever you tell it. When a reminder comes due, Lagoda writes the message, matched to how late they are and how you talk. A gentle nudge on day three reads different from the one on day thirty.
4. You press send. The draft waits for you. You read it, change a word if you want, and send it, or tell Lagoda to send it for you. Nothing goes to a client without your ok. A reply from Lagoda means a reminder went out the way you asked, not a thing it fired off on its own.
5. You see the status. Who paid, who's silent, how many days late, what's queued next. You get the picture in a sentence when you ask, or in the morning brief if you want it there. When Whitman pays, the receipt gets filed and the chase stops on its own.
The whole thing runs by voice or text in Telegram. You request access, a person sets you up, and it answers only to you. Same privacy rule as everything else Lagoda touches. It doesn't read your other chats and it doesn't pull anything out of your accounts you didn't hand it.
The four messages that get it paid
Chasing isn't one email. It's a sequence, and the tone moves down it.
Day three. Assume it slipped, because it did. "Invoice 1042 went out on the first, due the fifteenth. Anything you need from me on it?" Two lines. It hands them an exit that costs nobody face.
Day fourteen. Put the number and date in the message. "Invoice 1042, $4,300, two weeks past due. When can I expect it?" A question with a date in it gets answered. A nudge doesn't.
Day thirty. Add a consequence you'll keep. Work paused, late fee starting, next job off the calendar. Write only the one you'll do. An empty threat teaches a client to ignore you.
Day forty five. Last message before it stops being a conversation. Amount, age, what happens next. Three lines.
Most owners send the first one and never the rest. The sequence is the whole job, and it's what goes missing when you're busy.
Who this isn't for
If you run a real accounts-receivable department, with staff whose job is collections and a system that auto-sends dunning letters by the thousand, Lagoda isn't that. It's built for the owner who is the AR department, not the enterprise that has one.
And if you want a tool that fires reminders on full autopilot, no human in the loop, this isn't it either. Lagoda drafts and you approve, on purpose. If you'd rather never see the reminders before they go, you want a different product.
Common questions
How long can you chase an unpaid invoice?
It depends on where you are. California allows four years on a written contract under Code of Civil Procedure section 337, New York six under CPLR 213, and England and Wales six under the Limitation Act 1980. The clock starts when the payment came due, and a partial payment can restart it. Check the rule in your own state, this page is not legal advice.
What do you say when chasing an unpaid invoice?
Name the invoice number, the amount, and how late it is, then ask when you can expect payment. A question with a date in it gets answered, a polite nudge does not. The tone moves with the age of the bill: a light note at day three, a direct question at day fourteen, a consequence you will keep at day thirty.
How often should you chase an unpaid invoice?
Set a rhythm and hold it. Three days after the due date, then weekly, works for most owner-run businesses. The failure is rarely the schedule. It is that the owner sends one message and stops.
Does Lagoda send the reminders automatically?
No. It drafts the reminder and holds it until you press send, or until you tell it to send that one for you. Nothing goes to a client without your ok. You can set the chase schedule so the drafts show up on time, but the send is always your call.
How does it know who owes me?
You tell it, by voice note or text. Say who owes you, how much, and when the invoice went out, and Lagoda logs it. There's no import of your whole accounting file and no crawl of your inbox. It knows what you handed it, nothing more.
Is my client data safe?
Yes. Lagoda answers only to you and lives in its own thread. It doesn't read your other chats, doesn't scrape your messengers, and doesn't pull from your accounts. Your list of who owes you stays yours. That's the privacy-by-design rule the whole product runs on.
What messenger does it use?
Telegram. You talk to it there by voice or text, the same way you'd message a person. Your reminders, your receivables list, and the morning brief all live in that one thread.
Do I need to install anything?
No. There's no app to download and no dashboard to learn. It's a text thread you already know how to use. You request access, a person sets you up, and you start talking to it.