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Purpose

Every reply to a collection email is either a question, a commitment, a problem, or a payment. Sorting them by hand takes hours. Daylit reads each reply the moment it arrives, along with any attached documents. It works out what the customer needs and handles the routine replies for you. Only the conversations that need a person reach your team. When to use: Smart reply handling works in the background on every inbound email once your mailbox is connected in Settings → Integrations. Use this page to understand what Daylit does with replies and how to tune it. For working the cases that replies create, see Collection cases. Example: Orion Electric Supply replies to a past-due reminder. They say they’re frustrated that INV-1041 was billed at the wrong price, and they attach their purchase order as a PDF. Before Jobin (AR manager) at Acme Corporation opens the email, Daylit has already:
  • Shown a Frustrated badge on the message, with the sentence that shows it.
  • Read the PDF, found the invoice number, and linked the thread to INV-1041.
  • Suggested a dispute case tagged Dispute: Pricing Issue, with the playbook your team uses for pricing disputes.
Once Jobin accepts the case, he can tell Daylit to skip INV-1041 in regular collection program reminders while the dispute is open. Orion’s other invoices keep getting reminders as normal.

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Flowchart

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What Daylit does with every reply

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Read the room with sentiment badges

Tone matters in collections. A customer who mentions a bereavement needs a different reply from one who is just running late. Daylit reads the tone of each inbound email and shows a badge when the message isn’t neutral. Neutral, businesslike emails don’t get a badge, so the ones that do stand out. Hover over a badge to see the exact sentence from the email that shows the tone. Sentiment is there to inform your team. It doesn’t change what Daylit does on its own: it never pauses a sequence, holds a reply, or changes your queue order.

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Attachments read for you

Customers often put the important details in an attachment: a remittance advice listing what they paid, a copy of the invoice they’re questioning, or a purchase order. Daylit reads these documents so you don’t have to open each one.
  • What it reads: PDFs, including scanned PDFs, and JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images.
  • What it finds: Invoice numbers, purchase order numbers, amounts, and dates.
  • What it does with them: When Daylit is confident about an invoice number, it links the email thread to that invoice on the customer’s account, so the conversation shows up wherever you look at the invoice. Daylit never creates new invoices from an attachment. Attachments also help Daylit tell whether a dispute includes supporting documentation.
To see what Daylit read from a file, click the scan icon next to the attachment in the email. The Extracted from window lists any invoices Daylit found and shows the full text. Click Copy text to copy it. If the file is still being read, the window updates by itself when it’s done.
Your documents stay private. Attachments are processed inside Daylit’s secure AWS environment and are never sent to outside AI services or shared through links. The text Daylit reads is encrypted and stored with the same protection as your email messages. Other companies can never see it.

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Disputes recognized and tagged with a reason

“I’m disputing this invoice” can mean many things. When a reply is a dispute, Daylit tags it with the most likely reason. Your team sees the problem right away, and Daylit can suggest the playbook that fits. Daylit’s built-in reasons include Pricing Issue, Quantity Mismatch, Quality / Return Claim, Payment / Credit Issue, Delivery Issue, Billing Error, Duplicate Invoice, Tax & Fees Issue, and Missing Documentation. Other Dispute is the catch-all. You can turn built-in reasons on or off and add your own reasons in Settings → Cases. The reason shows on the case badge, for example Dispute: Pricing Issue. If Daylit gets it wrong, change it from the Reason dropdown on the case. For setup details, see Dispute reasons.

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Routine questions answered automatically

Requests for an invoice copy or payment instructions are easy to answer but tedious to keep up with. Inquiry auto-reply drafts the answer the moment the request arrives, or sends it for you. Daylit recognizes these inquiry types and tags them on cases and suggestions, for example Inquiry: Invoice copy: For each type, choose how Daylit responds:
  • Off: Daylit tags the email but doesn’t prepare a reply.
  • Create draft: Daylit leaves a reply draft in the thread for you to review and send.
  • Auto-send: Daylit sends the reply after a short wait, which you can cancel. While a reply is waiting, the thread shows Sending shortly at and the scheduled time, with Send now and Cancel buttons. Sent replies carry an Auto label.
Built-in safety checks: Auto-send only goes out on its own once Daylit has confirmed it answers that type of question accurately for your company. Until then, Daylit saves the reply as a draft for your review. Daylit only sends a payment confirmation when it can find the posted payment or a paid invoice. Otherwise it leaves the email for your team.

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Ask for missing details automatically

Sometimes a customer replies with half the information you need. For example, they promise to pay but don’t say when. In the Missing information card, Daylit can ask the follow-up question for you on Dispute, Promise to pay, and Wrong contact replies. For promises to pay, choose what to ask for: When they expect to pay, How much they plan to pay, or Which invoice it covers. After a short wait, Daylit sends the question and opens a case marked as awaiting the customer. It asks only once per thread.

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Set up auto-reply

1

Open the Auto-reply settings

Go to Settings → Outreach and select the Auto-reply tab.
2

Choose a response for each inquiry type

In Inquiry templates, set each inquiry type to Off, Create draft, or Auto-send. Start with Create draft if you want to review a few replies before turning on Auto-send.
3

Edit the reply templates

Expand Email template for a type to edit the subject and body. Type @ to insert your Invoice List or Payment Instructions snippet. Click Save template. Turn on AI wording if you want Daylit to adjust the wording to fit each conversation.
4

Turn on missing-information follow-ups (optional)

In Missing information, choose a response for Dispute, Promise to pay, and Wrong contact. For promises to pay, choose what Daylit should ask for.
How you know it worked: The next matching inquiry gets a reply draft in its thread, or a scheduled reply with Send now and Cancel buttons if you chose Auto-send.
Auto-reply sends the body of the email only. It doesn’t attach invoice PDFs. To share invoice details, use the Invoice List snippet in your template. You can edit snippets in Settings → Snippets.

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Keep disputed invoices out of regular reminders

Nothing damages a customer relationship faster than an automated past-due reminder for an invoice they’re actively disputing with you. On any dispute case, you can tell Daylit to skip the disputed invoices in regular collection program reminders. The customer’s other invoices keep getting outreach as normal. When the dispute closes, those invoices go back into their programs from where things stand that day. Daylit doesn’t catch up by sending the reminders that were skipped. For step-by-step instructions, see Pause collection program outreach on disputed invoices.

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Availability

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Troubleshooting

Badges only appear on emails from customers, and only when the tone isn’t neutral. Most businesslike emails won’t have one. If you’ve never seen a badge, sentiment may not be enabled for your workspace yet. Contact your Daylit team.
Daylit only links an invoice automatically when it’s confident about the invoice number and the invoice exists on that customer’s account. Click the scan icon to see what Daylit read. If the invoice is missing, link it yourself with + Link in the Invoices area of the case.
Attachment reading may not be enabled for your workspace. Contact your Daylit team. Daylit reads PDFs and JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images. Other file types, such as spreadsheets or Word documents, don’t show extracted text.
This is expected at first. Auto-send only goes out on its own once Daylit has confirmed it answers that inquiry type accurately for your company. Until then, the settings page shows that replies are held for your review. Review and send the drafts from the thread.
Open the case and choose the correct reason from the Reason dropdown in Details. The case shows a Manually corrected badge. If a reason is often confused with another, review its definition and example phrases in Settings → Cases → Dispute reasons.
Inquiry auto-reply may not be enabled for your workspace yet. Contact your Daylit team.
  • Collection cases: Work the dispute, inquiry, and promise-to-pay cases that replies create.
  • Collection programs: Set up the regular reminders that disputed invoices can skip.
  • Collection sequences: Build the playbooks Daylit suggests for each dispute reason.
  • Inbox: Review and send drafted replies and other actions.
  • Integrations: Connect the mailbox Daylit reads replies from.