> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.echeloncrm.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Automate Billing, Invoicing, and Reminders with Echelon

> Set up a billing AI Employee in Echelon to automatically send invoices, chase overdue payments, and keep customers informed about billing updates.

Billing follow-up is repetitive, time-sensitive, and easy to let slip. Echelon's billing AI Employees handle it for you — sending invoices when they are due, reminding contacts when payment is overdue, and updating customers when their billing status changes. This guide walks you through setting up a billing AI Employee, configuring the triggers that start its actions, and monitoring what it does.

## Set up a billing AI Employee

If you have not already created an AI Employee for billing, start here. If you already have one, skip to [Configure billing triggers](#configure-billing-triggers).

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the AI Employees section">
    From your Echelon dashboard, navigate to **AI Employees** and click **New AI Employee**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select the Billing role">
    Choose **Billing** as the role. This configures the employee to handle invoice delivery, payment reminders, and billing status messages.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Name the employee">
    Give the employee a clear name such as "Billing — Accounts Receivable" so you can identify it easily in the dashboard and activity logs.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Configure channels and tone">
    Choose which channels this employee will use to contact customers. Email works on all plans. If you're on Growth or Scale and have WhatsApp or SMS connected, you can enable those here as well.

    Set the tone to match how your business communicates — most teams prefer a professional but friendly tone for billing messages.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Activate the employee">
    Click **Activate**. The billing employee is now live and ready to be configured with triggers.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Configure billing triggers

Triggers define what causes the billing employee to act. Each trigger maps a billing event to a specific action.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open billing automation settings">
    Navigate to your billing AI Employee and select the **Triggers** tab.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add a trigger">
    Click **Add trigger** and choose the event that should start an action. Common triggers include:

    * **Invoice issued** — send the invoice to the customer as soon as it is created
    * **Payment overdue** — send a reminder when a payment passes its due date
    * **Repeated non-payment** — escalate with a follow-up reminder after a set number of days without payment
    * **Payment received** — send a confirmation or thank-you message when a payment is processed
    * **Billing details updated** — notify the customer when their billing information changes
  </Step>

  <Step title="Configure the action for each trigger">
    For each trigger, define what the employee should do: which message template to use, which channel to send on, and any delay between the trigger firing and the message being sent.

    <Info>
      You can add multiple triggers to a single billing employee. For example, set one trigger to send the invoice immediately, and a second trigger to send a reminder 7 days later if the invoice is still unpaid.
    </Info>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save your triggers">
    Click **Save** to apply the trigger configuration. The billing employee will begin acting on new events that match your triggers from this point forward.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Warning>
  Triggers only fire on events that occur after you configure them. They do not retroactively apply to invoices or overdue payments that existed before you saved the trigger.
</Warning>

## Monitor billing automation results

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the activity feed">
    Navigate to your billing AI Employee and select the **Activity** tab. Here you can see every action the employee has taken: which messages were sent, to which contacts, and when.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review outcomes">
    The activity feed shows delivery status for each message. Look for any failed deliveries or contacts who have not received expected communications and investigate from the contact record.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Adjust triggers as needed">
    If you find that reminders are going out too early or too late, return to the **Triggers** tab to adjust timing. You can edit any trigger without deactivating the employee.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
  Keep your billing employee focused exclusively on billing tasks. Running outreach or reply handling through the same employee makes the activity feed harder to read and can introduce conflicting message cadences.
</Tip>

## What's next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Build sequences" icon="list-ordered" href="/guides/build-sequences">
    Create multi-step follow-up flows to complement your billing automation.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Build custom tools" icon="wrench" href="/guides/custom-tools">
    Connect your billing data to external systems using the AI Coding Agent.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>