Accounts receivable recovery for UK businesses

Late invoices cost you twice.
We recover both.

The overdue debt, plus the interest and compensation UK law adds to every business invoice paid late. We chase every debt daily, on your behalf. You pay nothing unless we collect.

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60-second report from your aged debtor export. No card, no commitment.

ClearlineLIVE CALCULATOR

What one late invoice owes you

45 days
Interest at 11.75% a year£69.53
Fixed compensation£70.00
You can claim£139.53
Check my whole ledger

Bank of England base rate plus 8 points, under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

ICO registeredRegistration ZC272937
Credit Services AssociationWorking to its code of practice
Paid only on resultsNo recovery, no fee
Secure, read-only accessWe see invoices, nothing else

Works with the accounting software you already use

Accounts Receivable Intelligence & Recovery · UK

Unpaid invoices,
chased for good.

We recover overdue B2B invoices for UK businesses, working every debt daily with the persistence of a full credit control team. You pay nothing unless we collect.

Run your free ledger scan Book a call

No card, no commitment.

What you're owed, by law Live calculator
Original invoice£4,500.00
Statutory interest (base + 8%)£0.00
Fixed compensation (per invoice)£70.00
Total recoverable £0

Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, B2B invoices attract interest at the Bank of England base rate plus 8% on the gross sum including VAT, plus fixed compensation of £40 to £100 per invoice. The rate is fixed by reference to the base rate in force when the debt became late. Most businesses never claim any of it. We recover it as standard. Figures here are calculated under the Act.

£26bn
owed to UK businesses in late payments at any given time (DBT, 2025)
49%
of SME invoices are paid late
86 hrs
of staff time spent chasing late payment per affected business, every year (DBT, 2025)
£0
what you pay us if we don't collect
No win, no fee, published rates Funds held in a segregated client account We never buy debt: you stay the creditor Escalation only with your approval Statutory interest and compensation claimed on every eligible invoice
One minute

See exactly how a debt gets recovered.

From an aged debtor report to money in your account, including the statutory sums almost nobody claims.

Would rather click round the software yourself?

The client portal runs in demonstration mode with a full invented ledger loaded, so you can open every view without signing up for anything.

Open the demonstrationScan my ledger
Works with your accounting system
XeroXeroCONNECT DIRECTLY
Intuit QuickBooksQuickBooksCONNECT DIRECTLY
FreeAgentFreeAgentCONNECT DIRECTLY
SageSageUPLOAD YOUR EXPORT
GoCardlessGoCardlessDIRECT DEBIT
CSV · Excel · PDFANY AGED DEBTOR REPORT

Read-only access. A connection lets us see your invoices and nothing else. We cannot change, delete or move anything in your accounts, and you can disconnect in one click. Or send a file in whatever format your system produces. We have never turned away an export yet.

How it works

From aged ledger to money in the bank.

Three steps. You stay in control at every escalation point, and your customer relationships stay intact.

STEP 1

Upload your ledger

Connect Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, or upload an export from Sage or any other system. In 60 seconds you get a free recoverability report: every overdue invoice scored, with the statutory interest and compensation you're entitled to calculated per invoice.

60-second scan
STEP 2

We chase, you approve

Our automation runs firm, professional, personalised sequences across email, letter and phone, working every debt equally whether it's £600 or £16,000. Escalations to formal action only ever happen with your sign-off.

Every debt, every day
STEP 3

You get paid

Funds are collected into a segregated client account and remitted to you fast. You see live status per invoice in your portal. Our fee is 10% to 25% of what we actually collect depending on the age of the debt, and nothing if we don't.

Typical cycle 30 to 90 days
Still cautious? Start with one invoice.

Send us a single overdue invoice and see how we work before you instruct the rest of the ledger. The free scan costs nothing either way.

Get your free scan
Your portal

Every debt, its status, and what happens next. One screen.

What you are owed, what has come in, what is waiting for your sign-off and where the risk sits, read straight from your ledger and updated every day.

The Clearline client portal dashboard: sums under management, recovered this month, approvals waiting, the Clearline score, the recovery pipeline by stage and live risk alerts
Nothing formal without you

Every escalation waits in Approvals until you say yes. You see the letter before it goes.

Risk you would otherwise miss

Winding-up petitions, late filings and status changes on your debtors, flagged the day they appear.

Money you can trace

Collections in a segregated client account, reconciled daily, remitted with an itemised statement.

Open the demonstrationFull invented ledger loaded. No sign-up.
Your legal entitlements

The law is already on your side. Most businesses never use it.

The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives every UK business automatic rights on overdue B2B invoices. No contract clause needed.

+8%

Statutory interest

Interest accrues on overdue commercial invoices at Bank of England base rate plus 8%, from the day payment fell due.

£40–£100

Fixed compensation, per invoice

£40 on debts under £1,000. £70 from £1,000 to £9,999.99. £100 at £10,000 and above. On every single late invoice.

60 days

The rules are tightening

New legislation before Parliament will cap payment terms and give the Small Business Commissioner powers to fine persistent late payers.

Clearline calculates and claims these entitlements automatically on every debt we handle. The fixed compensation is £40, £70 or £100 an invoice depending on its size, so 100 late invoices carry between £4,000 and £10,000 of compensation before any interest, depending on their size, and most businesses never collect it.

Why Clearline

Relentless on the debt. Careful with the relationship.

Every debt worked, every day

Human teams triage and small debts get dropped. We don't: a £600 invoice gets the same persistence as a £16,000 one, which is why small debts finally get collected.

Your reputation, protected

Firm and professional, never aggressive. Sequences are written in your company's voice, and formal escalation only happens with your approval.

Aligned to the outcome

We charge a published percentage of what we collect: 10, 15 or 25% of what we collect by the age of the debt, or 8, 12 or 20% for subscribers. Software subscriptions charge you whether you get paid or not, and agencies rarely publish their rates at all. We win when you do.

Full visibility, always

A live portal shows every invoice, every action taken, every promise to pay. Funds move through a segregated client account and reach you fast.

Three ways to work with us · Pricing published in full

Recover what is late, stop it happening again, or claim what you were owed.

Start for nothing and pay only when we collect, or subscribe and have the whole ledger chased before invoices ever go late. No admin fees, no hourly rates, no minimum term.

Recovery only
For invoices that are late now
£0to start
10, 15 or 25% of what we recover, by the age of the debt. 18% on the interest and compensation we claim with it. Nothing if we recover nothing.
  • Free ledger scan, with the register checked
  • Specialist review before any escalation
  • Letter before action and court preparation through our legal partners
  • Interest and £40 to £100 compensation claimed on every invoice
  • Money into a segregated client account, remitted in two working days
Start with a free scanHow recovery pricing works →
Most popular
Credit control, recovery included
For businesses that want invoices paid on time
£495a month
Up to 150 invoices a month. No minimum term, 30 days' notice. Everything in Starter, plus director checks, monitoring alerts, pre-onboarding checks and a quarterly review.
  • Your whole ledger chased from seven days before due, by email, letter and telephone, in your name
  • Recovery included at the lower rates of 8, 12 or 20%
  • 15% on interest and compensation, and the Late Payment Audit at 15%
  • Companies House watch on every customer, with changes in your portal feed
  • The portal, the credit check and the monthly cash and ageing report
Subscribe to Growth · £495 a monthCompare Starter, Growth and Scale →
Late Payment Audit
For invoices paid late in the last six years
18% of what we recover
Free to run. 15% for credit control subscribers. Nothing if nothing is recovered.
  • Six years of paid-late history, the entitlement worked out invoice by invoice
  • A written report: the total, each year, the biggest claims
  • Former customers by default, live ones only if you say so
  • Claims issued in Clearline's name as your agent, nothing on your letterhead
Run the free auditHow the audit is priced →

The three recovery rates are set by the age of the debt when you instruct it: under 90 days, from 90 days to a year, and beyond. Statutory interest and £40 to £100 of compensation per invoice are claimed on every debt either way. See the full pricing page →

Late payment audit

Customers who paid you late still owe you money.

The Late Payment Audit

Statutory interest and compensation stay claimable for six years, even on invoices that were eventually paid. We audit your historic ledger, find what was never claimed, and pursue it, focusing on customers you no longer trade with so there is no relationship to protect.

See how the audit works
100 late invoices carry
£4,000 to £10,000
of fixed compensation alone: £40, £70 or £100 an invoice under the Act, before interest. Free to find, 18% of anything recovered, and nothing if we recover nothing.
The problem, in numbers

What late payment costs UK business.

These are not our figures. They are the Department for Business and Trade's, from its 2025 research into the cost of late payment, and the arithmetic of a law that has been in force since 1998.

£11bn
what late payment costs the UK economy every year, on top of the £26bn owed at any moment
Department for Business and Trade, Estimating the total economic cost of late payments, 2025
38
businesses closing every day as a result of late payment, 14,000 a year
Department for Business and Trade, 2025
11.75%
statutory interest a late-paying customer owes you today, base rate plus eight points
Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998
£40–£100
fixed compensation per late invoice, on top of interest, claimable for six years
s.5A of the same Act
Why you can trust us with this

Collections has a reputation problem. Here is how we answer it.

Handing customer relationships to a third party requires trust, and trust in this industry has to be evidenced rather than claimed.

ICO registration
CSA membership
Cyber Essentials
Segregated client account
PI & cyber insurance
UK data residency
No recovery, no fee Fees published, not quoted No minimum term Cancel with 30 days' notice Read-only access to your ledger Your money remitted in 2 working days

Things we will never do

Most of what worries people about debt collection is on this list, so we have written it down and made it a policy rather than a promise.

We will never buy your debtYou remain the creditor throughout and every decision about the account stays yours. We have no interest in owning what we recover.
We will never harass anyoneContact is capped in code: three emails, two calls, one text and one letter per week at most, no calls before 8.30am or after 6pm, none at weekends.
We will never escalate without your approvalLetters of claim, court proceedings, enforcement and any settlement below your floor all require your written sign-off. Every time.
We will never chase through a genuine disputeRaise it and collection pauses on the disputed sum while both sides' evidence is reviewed properly.
We will never charge a debtor to pay in instalmentsNo arrangement fees, no admin charges. Making payment easy is the point, not another revenue line.
We will never pretend to be something we are notNot a law firm, no enforcement powers of our own, and never a threat of action nobody intends to take.
Still cautious? Start with one invoice.

Send us a single overdue invoice and see how we work before you instruct the rest of the ledger. The free scan costs nothing either way.

Get your free scan
Straight answers

The questions everybody asks first.

It is the first thing almost every client asks, and it shaped how we built the service. You flag any customer you want to keep, and they are chased politely in your own company's voice before we ever appear. Statutory interest is mentioned but held back as leverage rather than charged. Nothing formal happens to anyone without your written approval, and you see every letter before it goes. In practice a firm, professional third party causes less friction than four months of increasingly awkward emails from you.
Not the day it becomes overdue. Merely late invoices belong in credit control, which is what the monthly service is for, and no percentage is taken on those. Formal recovery makes sense once your own chasing has failed, typically somewhere between 45 and 90 days past due, or immediately if a debtor shows signs of financial distress. You choose debt by debt, and we will tell you honestly when a debt is not worth pursuing.
They are a percentage of money you have already failed to collect, so the real comparison is most of something against all of nothing. Our rates are published on this site, which traditional agencies charging 10 to 25% almost never do. Add the statutory interest and compensation we claim, which most businesses never invoice, and the net cost on a typical ledger lands nearer 5% than the headline rate.
Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, every late business-to-business invoice automatically carries interest at the Bank of England base rate plus 8%, plus fixed compensation of £40 to £100 per invoice. It is the debtor's liability and requires no clause in your contract. You do not have to claim it, and you can tell us to waive it on any customer. Most clients have us claim it in full on ended relationships and hold it back as negotiating leverage on customers they want to keep.
Chasing pauses on the disputed amount immediately. We open a structured evidence exchange, review both sides' documents, and produce a neutral position summary with a recommended resolution. Undisputed sums remain payable throughout. We never chase through a genuine dispute: it damages your relationship and weakens the file if the matter ever reaches court. We do lift the pause when a dispute turns out to be a stalling tactic with no evidence behind it.
Where it is worth it, yes. We prepare every case to be litigation-ready from the first letter, then issue a protocol-compliant Letter of Claim. Court fees are yours and are never incurred without your written approval, and we will tell you when the expected recovery does not justify the fee. Proceedings are conducted either by you as claimant with our paperwork, or by our partner solicitor. You remain the creditor throughout: we never buy your debt.
It goes into a segregated client account, never mixed with our own funds, is reconciled daily, and is remitted to you within two working days of clearing, with an itemised statement showing the debt, the statutory sums and our fee. If a debtor pays you directly instead, just tell us within five working days.
Same day in most cases. Send an aged debtor report and you will have a free recoverability report in 60 seconds. Once you instruct, first letters go out within one working hour of your confirmation, and the statutory clock we quote in them is calculated to that day.
Not long, and the cost of waiting is measurable. An invoice under 90 days overdue recovers in roughly seven cases in ten. Past a year that falls to about one in three, and past two years it is often not worth the work. Statutory interest keeps accruing the whole time, so the amount owed to you rises while the chance of receiving it falls. The right moment to act is the day the invoice goes overdue, and the ladder we run for subscribers starts seven days before that.
Yes. The entitlement to statutory interest and fixed compensation arises when payment is late, not when it is chased, and it survives payment of the principal. You can claim it for six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland. That is the Late Payment Audit: we look at invoices your customers paid late over that period, work out what they still owe you, and claim it. There is no relationship risk because they have already paid.
The Bank of England base rate plus eight percentage points, on the gross invoice value including VAT, from the day after it fell due. At today's base rate that is 11.75% a year. On a £4,500 invoice 60 days late it comes to £86.92, plus £70 of fixed compensation, so £156.92 on top of the invoice. The calculator at the top of this page works it out for any invoice.
No. The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 implies the right into every business-to-business contract for goods or services. If your terms are silent, the statutory rate applies. If your terms name a lower rate, the position is currently that it must be a substantial remedy to stand, and the Commercial Payments Bill now before Parliament will void any term that excludes or waters down the statutory entitlement.
In practice the words are used interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn, collection tends to mean chasing on a creditor's behalf, and recovery tends to include the formal steps, the statutory claim and, where it comes to it, court proceedings and enforcement. Clearline does the whole arc, from a reminder seven days before due to enforcement of a judgment, so we use recovery.
Usually not through us, and we will tell you rather than take the instruction. Once a company is in liquidation or administration, unsecured creditors lodge a claim with the appointed practitioner and receive whatever dividend is paid, which is often nothing. What we can do is spot it early: the ledger scan reads the Companies House register, and debtor monitoring flags a strike-off notice, a winding-up petition or a change of status before you have wasted a month chasing.
The statutory entitlement applies to any business-to-business contract, so a sole trader or partnership debtor owes interest and compensation in the same way. The practical difference is in how a claim is pursued and what protections apply to an individual, so the pre-action steps differ. The scan tells you which of your customers are companies and which are not, and we set the sequence accordingly.
We collect on your behalf and we never buy debt. The invoice stays yours, the customer stays yours, and the money is paid into a segregated client account before it is remitted to you. Firms that buy debt have an interest in maximising what they extract; our only interest is recovering what you are owed at a published rate.
The statutory interest regime is English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish law, so it applies where the contract is governed by UK law. Where the debtor is outside the UK we can run the correspondence and the demand, and the rest depends on jurisdiction and value. We will tell you honestly at the scan whether a foreign debt is worth pursuing before you instruct anything.
Every package has one. In Xero it is Reports, then Aged Receivables. In QuickBooks it is Reports, then Accounts Receivable Ageing. In Sage it is Customers, then Aged Debtors. Export it as CSV, Excel or PDF and upload it here; we read any of them. Or connect Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent directly and we read the ledger without an export. The connection is read-only.
If we recover nothing, you pay nothing. No admin fee, no hourly rate, no minimum. Our fee is a published percentage of what we actually collect: 10% for debt under 90 days, 15% up to a year, 25% beyond. Court fees are the one exception, and they are only ever incurred with your written approval and where the economics justify them.
Business-to-business debt recovery does not require authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority; that regime covers consumer credit. We do not collect consumer debt. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller, hold professional indemnity and cyber insurance, are certified under Cyber Essentials and are members of the Credit Services Association, and client money sits in a segregated client account. If we ever move into consumer collections it will be under the appropriate FCA permission and we will say so.

Find out what your ledger is really worth.

Upload your aged debtor report and get a free recoverability analysis in 60 seconds, including the statutory interest and compensation you're already owed. No commitment, no card, no fee unless we collect.

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No cardNo commitmentNo fee unless we recover
→ 60-second analysis
→ Statutory entitlements included
→ No win, no fee: 10, 15 or 25% by age; 8, 12 or 20% for subscribers
→ No minimum term; 30 days' notice on subscriptions

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