Emma Jones urges small firms to trial AI for late payments

UK Small Business Commissioner Emma Jones has urged small firms to test AI tools for chasing overdue invoices, citing government research showing businesses spend an average of 86 hours a year pursuing payment.

Writing in Elite Business, Jones recommends starting with a single administrative task rather than a business-wide rollout. Her suggested approach is a month-long trial, using capabilities that may already be available in a firm’s existing software.

What happened

Jones identifies payment administration as an area where small businesses can apply AI now, while legislation intended to address the underlying causes of late payment progresses through Parliament. The immediate opportunity she describes is reducing manual work around invoices, correspondence and follow-up messages.

One use is helping business owners understand their position when a customer has not paid. Given details of an overdue invoice, an AI tool can summarise relevant rights and point users towards legislation, further advice and services provided by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner.

Those services include the office’s interest calculator and complaints service. In this application, the technology acts as a route to information and support rather than simply generating another payment reminder.

Inbox management is a second area. Jones says tools can sort incoming correspondence, identify messages about payments and give invoice-related emails greater prominence, reducing the amount of manual checking required to find important exchanges.

Reminder systems can also cover several stages of the payment cycle. They can notify customers before an invoice falls due, request payment on the agreed date and follow up when the balance becomes overdue.

The distinction is that follow-up activity can be scheduled to run when needed, rather than relying on a founder to remember each outstanding invoice and write every message individually. Jones presents this as a way to save time and reduce administrative errors; she does not give a measured reduction in hours from a particular trial.

The background

The 86-hour figure comes from government research cited by Jones and describes time spent pursuing unpaid invoices over a year. It measures the administrative burden, not the value of the outstanding debt.

Jones says the Commercial Payments Bill is moving through Parliament and is intended to tackle the practices and structural problems that leave small suppliers waiting for their money. Her argument separates that longer-term legislative work from changes firms can make to their own payment processes immediately.

Jones became Small Business Commissioner in June 2025. Her background includes founding Techlocate in 2000 and selling it to Tenon after 15 months, giving her experience of building and selling a business operated from home.

She subsequently launched Enterprise Nation in 2005 to support start-ups and smaller companies. The business support organisation grew to reach more than 800,000 businesses annually through its digital platform and membership community.

What people are saying

Jones’s starting point is to establish which activity consumes the most time before choosing a tool. That means defining a specific administrative problem rather than adopting AI without a clear task for it to perform.

She says some founders have created a separate email address for automated payment reminders. This puts distance between routine collection messages and the founder’s personal correspondence, making an uncomfortable customer conversation less direct.

It also leaves a further step available if routine reminders fail. A founder can then send a personal message, distinguishing that intervention from the automated correspondence already received by the customer.

Jones argues that businesses do not need substantial spending or specialist technical knowledge to begin. Existing digital tools may contain suitable AI features, so an initial test need not involve buying a separate system.

What happens next

Her proposed first step is a low-risk task, such as preparing routine customer replies or automating invoice reminders, tested over one month. Businesses should assess the results and adjust the process during that period before extending its use elsewhere.

The Office of the Small Business Commissioner has also published guidance, Using AI to outrun late payments, covering further ways to reduce payment administration and good practice on governance. Jones directs businesses to that guidance as they consider how to put the tools into use.