Receivables Reminder Engine

Payment reminders that a finance team can trust: the AI prepares, people decide.

Try the interactive demo: https://claude.ai/artifact/8mfiu4ABYxhwFJqKNbdf5M (synthetic data, nothing is sent)

An AI-ready tool that chases overdue invoices the way a careful credit controller would. It finds what is overdue, checks it is still unpaid and not disputed, drafts one reminder per customer in their language, and sends only after a named person approves. It logs every step and sends the CFO a note for each email sent.

There are three ways to use it, all on the same engine and data:

• AI assistant: a remote MCP server for Claude, Microsoft Copilot Studio or any MCP client

• Approval page: a web page where finance users review, approve or reject, and send (no AI)

• Scheduled job: prepares drafts automatically every day and never sends on its own

Version 0.1, built entirely on synthetic data: all companies, people and amounts are invented.

What it does

Reminder levels (configurable in config/settings.json, created from config/settings.example.json on first start):

Plug-ins: general (any overdue invoice), vat_recovery (VAT wording) and intercompany (friendly tone, netting, no final notice).

Related MCP server: SettleMate

Where the data comes from

Each list has its own source and a column mapping. Both are set on the Settings page, so no file editing is needed.

Column names are matched automatically in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and German, and for common ERP field names. European number and date formats, Excel dates, title rows above the table and country names are all handled. Rows that can't be read are reported, never guessed. Secrets (database passwords, API keys, the Microsoft 365 app secret) stay in environment variables.

Architecture

MCP client (Claude, Copilot, …)
        │  streamable HTTP
reminders/server.py   ← MCP tools
reminders/service.py  ← workflow: preview → prepare → approve → send → log
 ├─ engine.py      who gets which level (pure logic)
 ├─ render.py      HTML + text email, invoice table, final-notice figures
 ├─ templates.py   approved wording in 4 languages
 ├─ plugins.py     general / VAT recovery / intercompany
 ├─ extract.py     reads invoice PDFs and cross-checks the register
 ├─ connectors/    files (local/OneDrive/SharePoint), SQL, web API, Microsoft Graph, column mapping
 ├─ mailer.py      test outbox (.eml files); Outlook sending is in connectors/graph.py
 └─ store.py       drafts, reminder log, audit trail (SQLite now; Azure SQL next)

Run it

For users: double-click Start Reminders.bat (Windows) or Start Reminders.command (Mac). See TESTING.md and SETUP_MICROSOFT365.md.

For developers:

pip install -r requirements.txt
python data/generate_synthetic.py --as-of 2026-11-04   # synthetic invoices, contacts, payments, PDFs
python -m reminders.server --port 8765                  # MCP endpoint: http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp
python demo_client.py http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp         # full cycle through the MCP protocol
python run_job.py --as-of 2026-11-04                    # scheduled job: prepares drafts
python run_web.py                                       # approval page: http://127.0.0.1:8080/?as_of=2026-11-04
pytest -q                                               # automatic checks

Sent emails are written to outbox/ as .eml files, which open in Outlook.

To try it interactively, point the MCP Inspector (npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector) at the URL above. To use it from Claude or Copilot, deploy it behind a public HTTPS URL and add that URL as a custom connector.

Deploy to Azure (EU region)

az group create -n rg-reminders -l westeurope
az containerapp up -n reminders-mcp -g rg-reminders --source . --ingress external --target-port 8000

Before you use it with real data:

• Add OAuth sign-in (Microsoft Entra ID).

• Keep secrets in Azure Key Vault.

• Mount persistent storage, or switch the store to Azure SQL.

Use it from an AI assistant

Add the server to the Claude desktop app (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{"mcpServers": {"receivables-reminders": {"command": "C:\\path\\to\\receivables-reminder-mcp\\.venv\\Scripts\\python.exe",
  "args": ["C:\\path\\to\\receivables-reminder-mcp\\run_server.py", "--transport", "stdio"]}}}

In the cloud, the same server runs over HTTP (/mcp) for Claude or Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Roadmap

1. Hosting on Azure with Microsoft Entra sign-in for the approval page, so users only open a link

2. Approver identity from the login instead of a typed name

3. Notification to the approver when new drafts are waiting (email or Teams)

4. Dispute detection from customer replies, which pauses the reminder chain

5. Weekly CFO digest as an alternative to one note per send

Privacy by design

• Personal configuration (company details, data sources, Microsoft 365 tenant and client IDs) is stored in config/settings.json and config/sources.json. Both files are created locally from the *.example.json templates and are excluded from version control.

• The Microsoft 365 sign-in is kept only in config/.m365_token_cache.json, which is also excluded. Secrets such as the app secret and database passwords are read from environment variables.

• All data in this repository is synthetic.

Author

Marie Candy Kobli, Business Analyst. Part of a portfolio of AI tools built from real finance, manufacturing, M&A and project-feasibility processes.