# AUTOMATION.md starter: invoice reminders

When to use. A job that reminds customers about overdue invoices: it contacts people outside and spends a little on each send, so it has a spend cap per run, per day and per month, a time of day outside quiet hours, limits on how often one customer is contacted, and a person's yes before the send.

Before you turn it on. Change the owner, the days, the limits and the amounts to your own. 14:00 UTC sits outside the recommended quiet hours (22:00 to 06:00 UTC), and preflight_run holds any run that comes inside yours. The contact limits are steps the agent follows; keep the contact log they read. Run check_automation with your rules, show the section to the owner, and set status on only after their yes.

format: automation/1
owner: billing-team
currency: USD
timezone: UTC
updated: 2026-10-23

## invoice-reminders

trigger: cron 0 14 * * mon-fri
steps:
  1. read unpaid invoices more than 7 days past due
  2. skip customers reminded in the last 7 days or 3 times in total
  3. draft one reminder per customer
  4. send the reminders
  5. record each reminder in the contact log
scope: read invoices, contact log; write drafts, outbox, contact log
approval: before send the reminders
budget: 0.50 per run, 1 per day, 12 per month
retries: 1, backoff 10m fixed
timeout: 15m
min_gap: 20h
owner: billing-team
status: draft
last_reviewed: 2026-10-23