SideQuest chases your unpaid invoices for you.
Every morning, you ask Claude one question: "Run my AR sweep." SideQuest pulls every open invoice from QuickBooks Online, buckets them by aging, and writes a follow-up email to each customer in your Gmail Drafts folder. You review, hit send, move on with your day. No new app. No new login. No new vendor.
Start free See pricingHow it works
Ask Claude
"Run my AR follow-up sweep." Once a day, once a week, whenever you like. Part of your morning routine.
SideQuest pulls QBO
Every open Invoice with a balance greater than $25. Live data, no upload, no spreadsheet to maintain.
Buckets and drafts
Each invoice goes into one of six aging tiers. One email per customer, never one per invoice. Tone matches the worst-bucket invoice in that customer's stack.
You review and send
Drafts land in your Gmail Drafts folder. Open Gmail, scan each one, edit anything off, click send. A 30-customer chase takes 5-10 minutes.
Six escalation tiers (gentle to firm)
The tone scales with how late the invoice is. A 3-day-overdue invoice gets a check-in. A 90-day-overdue invoice gets a hold notice. The templates are conservative and respect that most overdue invoices are AP-system delays, not bad-faith customers.
| Bucket | When it fires | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| due_soon | 1-5 days before due | Friendly heads-up. "Just a quick note that..." |
| overdue_1_7 | 1-7 days past due | Check-in tone. "We know AP systems can move slow." |
| overdue_8_30 | 8-30 days past due | Firm but professional. Asks for the expected payment date. |
| overdue_31_60 | 31-60 days past due | Past-due notice. Flags account-standing risk. |
| overdue_61_90 | 61-90 days past due | Account on hold. Asks for a payment plan. |
| overdue_90_plus | Over 90 days past due | Urgent. Stops fulfillment until resolved. |
Sample draft
This is the actual output for a customer with two overdue invoices (one 5 days late, one 45 days late). The tone matches the worst bucket; both invoices get listed.
What's in AR Assistant
Included (Solo $29/mo and above)
- Pulls every open Invoice from QuickBooks Online live
- Six aging buckets, configurable thresholds
- One Gmail draft per customer (not per invoice)
- Multi-invoice consolidation with per-invoice breakdown
- Tone-appropriate templates (5 stock templates)
- Skips customers without a primary email on file
- Skips invoices below the $25 minimum (configurable)
- Dry-run mode returns the plan without writing drafts
- Reuses your existing Gmail OAuth (no new scope)
Not yet (deferred)
- Scheduled / cron-driven sweep (you ask Claude when you want it)
- Auto-send mode (the OAuth scope stays gmail.modify, never gmail.send)
- Per-customer custom templates (5 stock tiers cover the curve)
- Phone-call escalation prompts
- Payment-plan negotiation drafting
- Multi-currency totals (USD only for now)
Turning it on
One env var. That's the setup.
Add SIDEQUEST_AR_FOLLOWUP=true to your ~/.qb-distributor-mcp/.env file. Restart Claude Desktop. The run_ar_followup_sweep tool shows up in Claude's tool list. Ask Claude to run it whenever you want. No scheduled task, no overnight runs, no surprise activity.
Bundled with every paid tier. Unmetered.
AR Assistant doesn't have its own meter or per-action cost. Run sweeps as often as you want, chase every customer in your QuickBooks file. POs are the only thing that counts against your tier; AR drafts are bundled on Solo and above at no extra cost.
Why this matters
The job that SideQuest already does for inbound POs (read the email, parse, draft, hand to you for review) extends naturally to outbound AR. The same OAuth, the same Gmail Drafts pipeline, the same one-click-to-send pattern. Nothing new to install. No second login. No data leaving your machine. Your QuickBooks invoice list stays on your computer; SideQuest reads it through the same OAuth your accountant uses.
Adding AR Assistant turns SideQuest from "inbound PO automation" into a complete front office for QBO distributors: order in (PO parsing), order out (confirmations), money in (AR follow-up). Three sides of the same workflow. One install. One Claude conversation. Same per-PO economics ($4 saved per PO at $0.13).
Common questions
Does SideQuest send the follow-up emails on its own?
No. The drafts land in your Gmail Drafts folder. You review and click send. The connector requests gmail.modify scope only, never gmail.send. SideQuest cannot send mail on your behalf even if you asked it to.
What about customers I do NOT want to chase?
Two options. One, remove their primary email address in QuickBooks (the sweep skips customers with no email on file and tells you why). Two, set a higher min_balance_usd when you ask Claude to run the sweep ("run my AR sweep with a $500 minimum balance"). Future versions will support per-customer exclusion lists; ask if you want it sooner.
What if I'm on Free tier?
You get the chase plan (which customers to contact, the proposed subject and body for each) in the response, but Gmail drafts are not written. Upgrade to Solo ($29/month) to have the drafts land in your Gmail Drafts folder.
Can I customize the templates?
The five stock templates ship with the connector. They are intentionally conservative. The current build does not expose a template-editing UI; if you want a different tone or want your company name baked in, edit the templates in src/qb_distributor_mcp/ar_followup.py after install. A proper customization layer is on the roadmap.
Does this work with QuickBooks Desktop?
Not yet. AR Assistant is QBO-only today. The QBD bridge needs an Invoice query helper added; it's on the roadmap. The QBD beta page at /qbd-beta.html will get an AR Assistant callout once the bridge is wired.
What happens to customers I just billed last week?
They do not show up in the sweep until the invoice is within 5 days of its due date (or already past). A new invoice with Net 30 terms sits quietly for 25 days, then gets a friendly heads-up, then a check-in if it goes past due. You see it on the day it matters, not before.
Can I run the sweep on a schedule?
Not yet. The reason is honest: most QBO distributors do not leave their computer on overnight. A scheduled sweep that fires at 6 AM on a sleeping laptop never runs. A scheduled version is on the roadmap once we add a server-side runner for customers who want it, but the morning-ritual pattern works for most.