Clearline recovers overdue B2B invoices for UK businesses. We work every debt daily with the persistence of a full credit control team, however small the invoice, and our specialists make the judgement calls. You pay nothing unless we collect.
No recovery, no fee. From 8% of sums collected. Nothing else.
What you're owed, by lawLive 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 ratesFunds held in a segregated client accountWe never buy debt: you stay the creditorEscalation only with your approvalPublished fees, published methodology
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.
How Clearline recovers an unpaid invoice
Would rather see it on your own ledger?
Upload an aged debtor report and we will show you what is recoverable in 60 seconds, free.
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 Sage, or upload a CSV. 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
Three ways to work with us
Recover what's owed. Claim what was left behind. Then never let it age again.
Debt recovery
From 8% of sums recovered · No recovery, no fee
Free aged-debtor scan with statutory entitlements calculated
AI-driven chase sequences that preserve customer relationships
Specialist review on every escalation and sensitive account
Letter before action and court preparation through our legal partners
Interest and compensation claimed for you under the 1998 Act
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 £10,000. £100 above £10,000. 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. On a ledger of 100 late invoices, compensation alone is typically £4,000 to £7,000 that businesses simply never collect.
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, from 8%. 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.
The alternatives
Three ways to handle an unpaid invoice. Only one of them is designed for yours.
Chase it yourself
Reminder software
Traditional agency
Clearline
Takes debts under £5,000
Yes, at your own cost
Yes, but only emails them
Rarely, uneconomic
Yes, any size, worked daily
Who does the work
You and your team
Still you
Their call centre
Automated at volume, specialists on judgement
Cost when nothing is recovered
Your time
£199 to £599 a month regardless
Often a minimum fee
Nothing at all
Fees published up front
n/a
Yes
Almost never
Yes, on this website
Claims statutory interest and compensation
Almost never happens
Can add a line
Sometimes, at the legal stage
On every debt, as standard
Protects the customer relationship
You carry the awkwardness
Generic and impersonal
Reputation is the problem
Your voice first, your sign-off always
Goes all the way to court
Rarely worth it alone
No
Sometimes, at extra cost
Prepared from day one, only with your approval
Swipe to compare
Not sure which column you need?
The free scan tells you what is recoverable and what it would cost, with no obligation either way.
Tiered by debt age, because fresh debt is easier to collect and you should not pay as though it were not. Nothing is payable unless we recover.
START HERE
Free recoverability scan
Send us your aged debtor report in any format. Back in 60 seconds: what is recoverable, the statutory interest and compensation you are owed, what we would leave alone, and three observations on your ledger.
No cardNo commitmentNothing to installYours to keep either way
Chased before it hardens. Most of it recovers quickly, so it costs you the least.
12%
15% if unsubscribed
90 days to 12 months
Established arrears needing structured escalation, statutory claims and negotiation.
20%
25% if unsubscribed
Over 12 months
Aged debt others turn away. Harder work, priced honestly, still nothing if we fail.
The lower rate applies while you hold a credit control subscription, because the early chasing has already been done and paid for. The bracketed rate applies otherwise. The Late Payment Audit is 15% subscribed, 18% otherwise. Statutory interest and compensation are charged at that one rate whatever the age of the invoice. Nothing is payable unless we recover.
The part competitors cannot match: we claim statutory interest and £40 to £100 of compensation per invoice on every debt, which typically adds 5 to 8% back to your pot. Your net outcome beats a lower headline rate that leaves the statutory sums unclaimed.
No admin fees. No hourly rates. No minimum term. Court fees only ever with your written approval, and never incurred where the economics do not justify them.
Not ready to hand over a ledger?
Give us your worst one.
The invoice you have chased, given up on, or written off in your head. Send us that one. We take it through our full recovery process, for up to ninety days, with the statutory interest and compensation claimed alongside it.
1
Nothing to sign up to
No account, no ledger, no subscription. One short form, two minutes, and we call you before anything is sent.
2
The full process, not a taster
Handover letter, formal notice, director letter, letter of claim: every step in order, over up to ninety days, with your written approval on anything formal.
3
If it pays, our published fee. If not, nothing.
10, 15 or 25% by the age of the debt, on what we collect. If nothing comes back you owe nothing, and you get a written note on why.
Send us one invoice.We read the register, call you within a working day, and start the moment you say go.
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.
of unclaimed statutory entitlements. 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
Who we work with
Built for businesses that invoice other businesses.
We recover commercial trade debt across the UK. These are the sectors where late payment does the most damage, and where we do our best work.
Recruitment and staffing
Weekly temp invoices, end clients stretching terms, and margins too thin to carry the delay.
Weekly invoicing
Wholesale and distribution
Trade accounts drifting past terms as a matter of habit, with clean invoice evidence to enforce.
Trade accounts
Logistics and haulage
Fuel-squeezed margins against sixty and ninety day de facto payment behaviour.
Long payment chains
Agencies and professional services
Work delivered months ago, and a relationship that makes chasing it uncomfortable.
Relationship-sensitive
ManufacturingEquipment hirePrintCommercial interiorsFood supplyIf your customers are businesses, we can help. We do not collect consumer debt.
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 feeFees published, not quotedNo minimum termCancel with 30 days' noticeRead-only access to your ledgerYour 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 debtor.
Most clients test us on a single account before instructing the rest of the ledger. The free scan costs nothing either way.
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. Our registration with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller and our professional indemnity cover are being put in place for launch, and client money sits in a segregated 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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