Unpaid SaaS Invoice: How to Get Paid When Reminders Fail
Reminders ignored? Formal notice, suspending access, French order for payment and the new 3-month deadline: how a SaaS vendor recovers unpaid invoices
In SaaS, non-payment rarely happens overnight. An invoice slips to 60 days, then 90, while the service keeps running and the automated reminder goes unanswered. At that point, a fourth reminder achieves nothing. You need to change gear.
The good news: a SaaS vendor holds a lever most creditors do not have, and France's go-to court procedure, the order for payment (injonction de payer), is fast when the debt is not disputed. The less good news: since September 2026, that procedure is far less forgiving of delay. Here is the sequence I recommend for B2B claims under French law, in the order it actually unfolds.
Three questions to settle before escalating, because they shape everything that follows.
Can you prove the debt? You need a signed contract or traceably accepted terms, an order form, compliant invoices and, ideally, records showing the service was used. If acceptance of your terms is shaky, that is the first point a bad-faith customer will attack. I explain why in the article on SaaS terms and self-service sales.
Is the debt disputed? A customer who stays silent is not a customer who disputes. One who has written to complain about downtime or a missing feature is in a different position, and the strategy changes.
Is the customer solvent? A quick check of the company register and the official insolvency notices (BODACC) tells you whether insolvency proceedings are open. If they are, none of what follows applies as is.
A reminder is commercial. A formal notice (mise en demeure) is legal: it tells the customer the conversation is over and there is now a timetable.
Be precise. List the invoices, the total amount, late-payment interest, the fixed recovery fee of 40 euros per invoice owed in French B2B dealings, a deadline to pay (eight to fifteen days is enough), and what happens otherwise: suspension of access, then proceedings. Send it by a method that proves receipt.
In practice. This is the step that settles the most files. A formal notice sent by a lawyer, announcing a dated suspension and dated proceedings, often unlocks a payment that had been dragging for months. It also becomes the central exhibit later on: it proves the customer knew and had its chance.
A seller of goods has already delivered. A SaaS vendor keeps performing every single day. That is a major advantage: you can stop providing the service until you are paid. In many files, suspension achieves in a few days what no letter did, because the customer's teams are blocked and the issue goes straight to management.
Use this lever with method.
Have a contractual basis. The safest route is a suspension clause in your terms or master agreement: after a formal notice left unanswered for a set period, you may suspend access. Without a clause, French law still allows a party to suspend its own performance when the other party's breach is serious enough, provided it gives notice. But you then open a debate on how serious the breach is. The clause removes it.
Warn before you cut off. The formal notice announces the suspension and its date. A cut-off without notice, even one justified on the merits, hands the customer an argument to turn the tables on you.
Stay proportionate. Cutting off a customer who has paid nothing for three months is not the same as suspending access over a small invoice disputed in good faith. If the customer seriously challenges the quality of the service, suspension can turn into a breach on your side.
Leave the data alone. Suspending is not deleting. The customer's data stays intact during suspension, and your data return obligations remain if it terminates. Using data as a bargaining chip is the surest way to turn a simple debt into litigation.
Worth flagging. Suspension or termination? Suspension is leverage: the relationship continues, the customer pays and gets access back. Termination ends the contract and moves you into pure debt recovery. Terminating too early can cost you part of the amounts due until the end of the commitment, depending on your contract. The overview of termination options for an IT contract helps you pick the right tool.
If the formal notice and suspension have produced nothing, it is time for court. For an unpaid invoice the customer does not contest, the order for payment is the most efficient tool.
The principle is simple. You file an application with the commercial court where your customer is based, with your exhibits: contract, order form, invoices, formal notice. There is no hearing at this stage. The judge reviews the file and, if satisfied, issues an order requiring the customer to pay. Allow a few weeks depending on the court. A lawyer is not mandatory, but the quality of the file is what separates an order from a rejection.
The reform, which applies to orders issued since 1 September 2026, shortens the timetable and makes it stricter.
You now have three months, instead of six, to have the order formally served on your customer by a judicial officer (commissaire de justice, formerly bailiff). Miss that deadline and the order lapses: you start again from scratch.
Once the order is served, the customer has one month to file an objection. You no longer need to request a certificate of non-objection from the court registry: the registry tells you if the customer objects.
If, two months after service, you have received neither notice of an objection nor a request to pay the objection fees, you can move to enforcement. The judicial officer can, in particular, seize the funds held in the customer's bank accounts.
In practice. The three-month deadline is the one that sinks files. An order obtained and then left in a drawer for a quarter is worth nothing. The reflex: line up the judicial officer when you file the application, and send them the order the day you receive it.
If the customer objects, the matter becomes ordinary litigation before the court, with both sides heard. That is usually a sign of a real dispute on the merits, which leads to the next point.
The order for payment works for undisputed debts. In three situations, you need another path.
The customer disputes the merits. It cites downtime, a missed SLA, a promised feature never delivered. An order for payment will almost certainly trigger an objection, and months will be lost. If the dispute is plainly a pretext, summary proceedings for an interim payment (référé-provision) can secure a payment order quickly after a short hearing. If the dispute is genuine, you need a full action on the merits, and the way your service commitments are drafted will weigh heavily. I cover this in the article on SLA penalties and damages.
The customer is in insolvency proceedings. Safeguard, reorganisation or liquidation: individual enforcement is stayed and the order for payment becomes pointless. Your priority is to file your claim with the court-appointed creditors' representative within two months of the opening judgment being published in the BODACC. Miss it and you may never be paid. Another trap: once proceedings are open, you generally can no longer suspend the service because of invoices issued before the opening. Services provided afterwards, however, must be paid.
The customer is based elsewhere in the European Union. The European Order for Payment follows the same logic, a written procedure with no hearing for an undisputed debt, and produces a decision enforceable in other Member States. Outside the EU, the strategy depends on the country and the law governing your contract.
Vendors who recover unpaid invoices without a fight prepared for it at signature. The reflexes I recommend:
Handle an unpaid SaaS invoice like a staircase: formal notice, suspension, then order for payment. Most files stop on the first two steps. Those that reach court are won on the quality of the exhibits and, since September, on speed of execution. If you have an invoice that keeps slipping, or want to check that your contracts give you the right levers, let's talk.
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I have been supporting software and SaaS companies for over 10 years, helping them structure their business, protect their intellectual property and strengthen their contracts.
