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Late fees and payment reminders

Turn on automatic late fees, NSF handling, and borrower payment reminders for your in-house (BHPH) loans.

Who: Owner or ManagerPlan: All plans

Set up the money rules for the loans you carry: late fees, returned-payment (NSF) handling, and automatic borrower reminders. Everything here is off by default — nothing is charged or emailed until you turn it on.

These settings only affect BHPH loans (the in-house financing you service). Cash and outside-lender finance deals are unaffected. You need the Owner or Manager role to change them.

Open BHPH settings

There is no "Settings" item in the left sidebar — these settings live in the account menu.

  1. Click your account menu in the top-right corner (your name/initial with the chevron).
  2. Under Settings, click In-house financing.
  3. The page (titled In-house financing (BHPH)) shows three cards: Late fees, Returned payments (NSF), and Payment reminders.

Set your late-fee defaults

These values prefill the loan calculator when you write a new loan. They do not change loans you already signed.

  1. Grace period (days) — how many days after the due date before a payment is considered late (e.g. 10).
  2. Default late-fee type — pick None, Flat amount, or Percent of payment.
  3. If you picked Flat amount, enter Default late-fee amount ($) (e.g. 25.00). If you picked Percent of payment, enter Default late-fee percent (%) (e.g. 5).
  4. Click Save BHPH settings.

The fee charged on any given loan always uses that loan's own signed terms, not these defaults. Changing the defaults here never reaches back into an active loan. Enter the amounts your state law allows — there are no preset legal amounts.

Turn on automatic late fees

The daily servicing run can charge late fees for you, so you don't have to do it account by account.

  1. In the Late fees card, turn on Auto-assess late fees daily.
  2. (Optional) Set Extra days past grace before auto-assessing (optional) — extra wait beyond the grace period before a fee is charged. Leave it blank to assess as soon as a payment is past grace.
  3. Click Save BHPH settings.

Once on, the daily run charges a late fee on each overdue installment — one fee per installment, ever — for any loan that carries late-fee terms. Each run charges the fee on the oldest overdue installment; as more installments fall behind on later days, each one gets its own fee in turn.

A late fee only fires when both are true: you enabled Auto-assess late fees daily, and the loan was signed with late-fee terms (a flat or percent fee, not "None"). A loan with no late-fee terms is skipped — set the terms on the loan before expecting a fee.

Charge a late fee by hand

You don't have to wait for the daily run. On an account that is past due:

  1. Open the loan under Accounts.
  2. Click Assess late fee in the page header. (The button only appears on an open loan that carries late-fee terms.)
  3. Add an optional note and confirm.

The manual button charges the fee from the loan's own terms on the oldest overdue installment. It will tell you why if there's nothing to charge (the loan isn't past due after grace, or the loan has no late-fee terms).

Returned payments (NSF)

When a check bounces or an ACH is returned, mark that payment returned so the money comes back off the balance.

  1. (Optional, one time) In the Returned payments (NSF) card, set the NSF fee ($) you charge (e.g. 35.00). Leave it blank for no fee. Click Save BHPH settings.
  2. On the loan under Accounts, find the bounced payment in the Payment ledger and click NSF.
  3. Enter a Reason (required, e.g. "ACH returned — insufficient funds").
  4. (Optional) Check Also charge the configured NSF fee.
  5. Click Mark returned.

Marking a payment returned reverses it — the bounced money comes back off the balance — but the original payment is not deleted. It stays in the ledger for the audit trail. Only Owner or Manager can do this. You can only reverse a regular payment (installment, extra principal, or payoff), and only once. The NSF button doesn't appear on a fee, pickup, reversal, or already-voided row.

Turn on borrower payment reminders

The daily run can email your borrowers about upcoming and past-due payments, and send your team a summary.

  1. In the Payment reminders card, turn on Email borrowers about payments.
  2. Set Send upcoming reminder this many days before due (e.g. 3). Leave it blank to skip the upcoming reminder — past-due notices still send.
  3. Click Save BHPH settings.

When on, each day the daily run sends:

  • An upcoming-due email to the borrower, the chosen number of days before the due date (only if you set the lead-days value).
  • A past-due email to the borrower once a payment is overdue.
  • A once-per-day summary to your team's notification bell — when there's something to report (counts of past due, due soon, and late fees assessed) — linking to Collections.

Each reminder email includes a borrower portal link so the customer can view their balance, payoff, and schedule.

Reminders are sent once per installment — one upcoming notice and one past-due notice per due date — not a daily drip. A borrower with no email on file gets no email (the team summary still counts them). Make sure the customer record has an email address.

How the daily run works

A scheduled job runs once a day and, for each dealer, does the enabled work above. If you have both late fees and reminders turned off, your dealership is skipped entirely. Late fees are idempotent (never doubled) and reminders are de-duplicated, so re-runs are safe.

The run uses each dealership's own time zone for "today." Fees enter the balance on the day they're assessed and are only paid down by later payments — they never retroactively change earlier payments.

FAQ

I turned on auto late fees but nothing was charged. Why?

Common reasons: the loan has no late-fee terms (type is "None"), the loan isn't an active or defaulted loan, the payment isn't past the grace period (plus any extra days you set), or a fee was already charged for that overdue installment (it's once per installment). Use the Assess late fee button on the loan to see the exact reason.

Will changing the default late-fee amount update my existing loans?

No. The defaults only prefill new loans at origination. Every loan charges from the terms it was signed with. To change an active loan's fee, change the terms on that loan.

Do borrowers get emailed every day until they pay?

No. They get one upcoming-due notice and one past-due notice per installment due date — not a daily stream.

Why didn't a borrower get a reminder email?

Most often there's no email address on the customer record. The reminder needs the borrower's email; without it, only the team summary counts that account.

Can a salesperson change these settings?

No. BHPH servicing settings control money (fees) and borrower communication, so only Owner or Manager can edit them. The same applies to marking a payment returned (NSF).

What does the NSF fee setting do?

Nothing on its own. It only applies the fee when you mark a payment returned and check Also charge the configured NSF fee. Leave the amount blank for no NSF fee.