December 2024: part payments, receipts and knowing who owes you
December 2024 was about the end of the invoice: part payments, receipts, and a clear view of who owes what and how old the money is. Here is what we built and why.
Part 15 of 39 of Building TradeYoke, the story of how the platform was built, from January 2024 to today. Previous: November 2024: a ledger that cannot be quietly edited. Next: January 2025: how customers pay, with pay links, cards and Direct Debit. See every part on the build timeline.
Quick answer
Quick answer: TradeYoke lets you record a part payment against an invoice, produces a receipt, and shows who owes you on a Who owes me page that groups debt by age: not yet due, 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days. The same figures appear in the morning email and the aged-debt report.
Key takeaways
- Part payments and receipts are recorded against the invoice, so the balance is always right.
- Who owes me groups debt by age, per piece of work rather than by the customer's worst invoice.
- The page, the morning email and the report all use the same figures, so they cannot disagree.
Not every payment is the whole bill
By December 2024 invoices could be raised and paid in full. Real customers do not always pay in full. A deposit, a payment towards a bigger bill, a customer who pays half now and half on Friday: they are all normal. So the invoice had to accept a part payment, keep the balance right, and give the customer a receipt.
Receipts
When a payment is recorded, the customer can have a receipt, produced as a PDF. It is a small thing and it settles a lot of "did I pay that?" questions before they become phone calls.
The first "who owes me"
Alongside payments we built the view that matters most to a small business owner: who owes me, and for how long. The page groups unpaid money by age.
- Not yet due
- 0 to 30 days
- 31 to 60 days
- 61 to 90 days
- Over 90 days
One design decision is worth explaining. The age is worked out for each piece of work, not for the customer as a whole. A customer who has one old unpaid invoice and several recent ones is not "90 days overdue"; they have one old debt and some current ones. Ageing each item separately tells you what to chase and what to leave alone.
One set of figures
The same ageing is used in three places: the Who owes me page, the morning email, and the aged-debt report. They come from one calculation, so the three can never give you different answers. The morning "who owes me" report describes how the email works, and chasing late payments the polite way is about what to do with the list.
Looking back at the year
By the end of 2024 the build had customers, jobs, a diary, a safe way in, and a way to bill and record payment. That is a business's core loop. In January we moved on to the next question: how do customers pay?
Questions people ask
Can I record a part payment in TradeYoke?
Yes. A payment can be recorded against an invoice for less than the full amount. The balance updates and a receipt can be produced.
How does TradeYoke show who owes me money?
On the Who owes me page, grouped into not yet due, 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days, for the business and for each customer.
Try it on your own week
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