In short
- A promise to pay (PTP) is a customer’s commitment to pay by a specific date.
- PTPs are tracked in collections to schedule follow-up and forecast cash.
- A good collections process pauses dunning while a PTP is open and follows up if it’s broken.
- Kept-vs-broken PTP rate is a useful signal of customer payment reliability.
Promise to pay, defined
A promise to pay (PTP) is a commitment from a customer to settle an overdue invoice by an agreed date. It can be captured from a call, an email, or a chat reply during the collections process.
Recording a PTP turns a vague ‘we’ll get to it’ into a dated, trackable expectation you can follow up on.
How promises to pay are used
When a customer makes a PTP, a good collections process pauses dunning until the promised date, then automatically resumes follow-up if the payment doesn’t arrive. PTPs also feed a short-term cash forecast.
Tracking whether PTPs are kept or broken builds a reliability signal that informs how firmly to handle that account next time.
Promises to pay and automation
An autonomous collections agent reads a customer’s reply, recognizes a promise to pay, sets the follow-up date, and holds the cadence — then chases again the moment a PTP is broken, without anyone tracking it by hand.
That’s the difference between a reminder tool and an agent that actually works the account.
Frequently asked questions
What happens when a promise to pay is broken?
A broken PTP should trigger immediate follow-up and usually a firmer escalation, since a missed commitment is a stronger risk signal than a simply overdue invoice.
See Welldun work on your ledger
Welldun chases overdue invoices across email, WhatsApp, and voice, and applies incoming cash to the right invoices automatically — so your DSO falls without the manual chase.
Book a demoRelated terms
Dunning · DSO · Accounts receivable · Cash application · Browse the full glossary →