Nobody plans to stop chasing a payment. It just slides , one busy week, then a second, and by the time anyone looks properly the customer has moved, the phone number is dead, and the amount is large enough to be embarrassing.

A fixed twenty-minute slot each week prevents almost all of it.

Pick a time and defend it

Friday morning works well: the week's payments have landed and there is still a working day left to act.
The rule: Same time, same person, every week, whether or not anything looks wrong. A review you only run when you suspect a problem will always run too late.

Work the overdue list in order

Sort by days overdue, oldest first, and handle each one before moving on.

• One to seven days: A reminder is enough. Most of these are forgetfulness, not distress.

• Over thirty days: Stop sending reminders and follow the escalation written into the agreement. Repeating a message that has already been ignored four times is not a process, it is a habit.

Separate cannot-pay from will-not-pay

These need opposite responses. A customer whose income has genuinely dropped is worth rescheduling , a longer term on a smaller installment usually recovers far more than enforcement would. A customer who is simply ignoring you needs the documented escalation path applied promptly and without further negotiation.

Close the loop before you finish

Every item on the list ends the review with a recorded outcome.

• Reminded, rescheduled, escalated, or resolved , never just "looked at".

• Write the next action and its date against the agreement, not on a piece of paper.

• The point of the ritual is that nothing carries over silently. If an item is still open next Friday, its history is already there and the next step is obvious.