As of 13 August 2026, AI can draft a letter before action for an unpaid invoice.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the unpaid invoice, the contract or order terms, the customer’s account record and all relevant emails or messages.
   2. Make a fact sheet containing the parties’ legal names and addresses, invoice number, invoice date, due date, amount paid, amount outstanding, agreed interest or charges, and the payment instructions.
   3. Paste the fact sheet and the relevant contract extracts and correspondence into the prompt, removing unnecessary personal data and replacing any missing item with a bracketed slot.
   4. Ask the chatbot to identify the applicable UK jurisdiction and any potentially relevant pre-action protocol before drafting the letter, and to flag anything that needs a solicitor’s confirmation.
   5. Compare the draft line by line with the invoice, contract and correspondence, checking every name, date, amount, calculation, interest claim and statement about court action.
   6. Ask a solicitor to check the final letter if the debt is disputed, substantial, legally complex, or subject to a specific pre-action protocol, then send the checked letter using a method that records delivery.

   Prompt

   Draft a letter before action for an unpaid invoice under the law of [England and Wales or Scotland]. Use only the facts and documents I provide, and do not invent dates, contractual terms, interest, fees, legal claims or procedural requirements. First list the facts you relied on, the facts that are missing, the amount claimed and any arithmetic used. Then identify whether a specific pre-action protocol appears relevant, stating clearly where a solicitor must confirm this. Draft a firm, plain-English letter that includes the parties, invoice number, invoice date, due date, amount outstanding, any contractually agreed interest or late-payment charge, a concise chronology, a clear demand, a reasonable response deadline stated as [insert deadline], payment instructions stated as [insert payment instructions], and the consequences I propose to state if payment is not made. Do not threaten unlawful action or state that court proceedings will definitely succeed. Mark every point that needs checking against the original documents. End with a short checklist of attachments and final checks before sending. This is a drafting exercise, not professional advice.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.