Dunning
Dunning is the systematic process of chasing overdue or failed payments — the sequence of reminders, retries and escalating action a business runs when a scheduled payment doesn't clear. In self storage it's the engine of the arrears process: a missed licence fee triggers a reminder, a retry, and — if the account stays unpaid — escalating steps up to overlocking.
Reviewed by Phil McParlane, Founder
Updated 10 October 20264 min read
Dunning is the systematic process of chasing overdue or failed payments — the sequence of reminders, retries and escalating action a business runs when a scheduled payment doesn't clear. In self storage it's the engine of the arrears process: a missed licence fee triggers a reminder, a retry, and — if the account stays unpaid — escalating steps up to overlocking.
Good dunning recovers the money without losing the customer. It is persistent and clear rather than punitive: most missed payments are an expired card or a temporary bank issue, not a refusal to pay, so the job is to make settling up quick and obvious. Run badly — or by hand across hundreds of agreements — dunning leaks revenue instead: reminders that never go out, retries fired at the wrong moment, and customers chased for payments that have already cleared.
The dunning sequence
A storage dunning flow is a ladder, and each rung gives the customer another chance to put things right before the next one bites — from a first reminder, through a rail-timed retry and a late fee, to an overlock and, as a slow last resort, the disposal-of-goods process a well-run flow is designed to make almost never necessary. Access is suspended at the overlock rung until the balance clears (see overlocking). The craft is in the timing and tone of the early rungs: enough contact to recover the money, not so much that a good customer feels hounded. Our guide to late fees and interest on self storage in the UK sets out the rules that bear on the late fee on that ladder.
When the ladder has run out and a balance is still unpaid, one route is a county court money claim, covered in our guide to taking unpaid self storage fees to the county court.
Payment fails A Direct Debit is returned unpaid, or a card charge is declined.
Reminder The customer is told the payment did not clear, with a simple way to pay or update their details.
Retry The payment is re-attempted, timed to the payment rail.
Late fee The account is flagged in arrears, and a late-payment fee may apply under the licence agreement.
Overlock Access to the unit is suspended until the balance clears.
Formal arrears A slow last resort, with statutory notice requirements in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the common law in Scotland — which a well-run dunning flow makes almost never necessary.
Dunning cards vs Direct Debit
The retry logic differs sharply depending on how the customer pays, and getting it wrong is a common and costly mistake.
A card failure is known within seconds, so retries can run on a tight, scheduled cadence — try again in a couple of days, then again — and a declined card usually just needs re-authorising or replacing.
A Bacs Direct Debit runs on a slower clock. A collection takes several working days to clear, and a failure arrives as a scheme message rather than an instant decline. So the retry has to be gated on that actual failure event, not a card-style day-one timer: chase a Direct Debit while it is still inside its clearing window and you are dunning a customer who has, in fact, paid. Direct Debit also isn't final — a collection can still be refunded later under the Direct Debit Guarantee if an error was made — so a storage dunning process must be able to reopen an account that already looked settled.
| Aspect | Card | Bacs Direct Debit |
|---|---|---|
| Failure signal | CardKnown within seconds — an instant decline | Bacs Direct DebitArrives days later as a scheme message |
| Retry timing | CardA tight, scheduled cadence — try again in a day or two | Bacs Direct DebitGated on the actual failure event, never a day-one timer |
| Finality | CardA declined card just needs re-authorising or replacing | Bacs Direct DebitRefundable under the Direct Debit Guarantee if an error was made — an account can reopen after it looked settled |
How a storage dunning flow differs by payment rail
Automated vs manual dunning
Run by hand, dunning is a memory game: someone reads an arrears report, sends the reminders, remembers to retry, applies the late fees, and — the part that goes wrong — remembers to stop the moment a payment lands. Across a growing book of agreements that doesn't scale, and the failures cost real money on both sides: revenue left uncollected, and paid-up customers wrongly chased or locked out.
Automating it turns the ladder into rules. In StoreBay a failed payment is followed by reminders on a schedule you can change (by default emails on day 2, 5, 8 and 14, and a £15 late fee on day 8), a declined card is tried again over the following days, and when StoreBay retries a failed Direct Debit automatically, it does so after fresh notice. When your rule says an account has gone far enough to overlock, StoreBay tells your staff which unit to padlock, and tells them to take the padlock off once the customer has paid. See billing and collections and overdue units and access. Our guide to automated self storage follows a missed payment through a site with nobody on it. Customer emails and text message reminders covers the reminders.
What makes a reminder a service message, and what turns it into marketing, is in our guide to customer emails, texts and PECR.
Whichever way you run it, the discipline is the same: dun by rule, gate the retries to the payment rail, and stop the instant the customer pays. That is what protects the revenue and the relationship at once.
How StoreBay fits today
StoreBay sends reminders and adds a late fee under a policy you can change. Reminders go out on your schedule. Change the days or the fee, remove a reminder, or switch the late fee off. A declined card is tried against any other card the customer has saved, then again over the following days.
Our billing page sets out how StoreBay collects by Direct Debit or saved card and what happens when a payment fails. Its pricing is published.
Phil McParlane, Founder, StoreBay
Phil is the founder of StoreBay, the UK self-storage management platform. He reviews each guide on this site. About StoreBay
