If customers owe you money, the first question is not "how much?" but "how late, and who do I call first?". The Receivables dashboard in Aicountly Billing answers that on one screen: an ageing breakdown, a ranked follow-up list, a 30-day collections forecast and a place to record what customers promised.
Outstanding, overdue and due soon are three different questions
The top of the Receivables dashboard shows figures that look similar but measure different things. Aicountly Billing deliberately labels each one with its basis:
- Outstanding is what customers still owe as on today, bill by bill, after every receipt allocated so far. A part-paid bill counts only for the unpaid part, not its full value.
- Overdue is the part of the outstanding whose due date has already passed.
- Due in seven days covers bills falling due between today and the next seven days.
- Collected is receipts over the period you choose. It is not revenue: a receipt in September against an August invoice is September's collection and August's sale.
Keeping these apart avoids a common mistake: reading "outstanding" as "late". A large outstanding balance with a small overdue share is a healthy book; the reverse needs attention.
Read the ageing analysis from the right side
The Ageing analysis panel sorts every unpaid bill into mutually exclusive buckets, based on each bill's own due date against today's date:
BucketWhat it meansNot yet dueThe due date is still ahead1–30 days lateRecently overdue; usually a reminder fixes it31–60 days lateNeeds a personal follow-up61–90 days lateEscalate; ask for a firm dateOver 90 days lateHighest risk; review the relationship and termsNo due dateShown only when some bills have no due date recordedThe buckets say "late" on purpose. A label such as "1–30 days" alone does not tell you which side of the due date those days fall on, and that ambiguity can make a bad book look healthy. Each bucket shows the amount, the number of bills and its share of everything outstanding, and a click on a bucket takes you to the matching list of receivables.
Use follow-up priorities to decide who to call first
The Follow-up priorities panel tells you how many customers hold the overdue money and how much they hold between them. If nothing is overdue, the panel says there is nobody to chase. If Aicountly Billing could not read the balances, it says so instead, because "nobody to chase" would be a false statement about your business.
The Top outstanding customers table lists the biggest balances with a customer name, so you can start with the few accounts that move the needle rather than working through the list alphabetically.
Send a reminder you have read first
From a customer row you can open a reminder. Aicountly Billing drafts the message with the customer's name, the oldest overdue bill and how long it has been past its due date, then asks for payment or a date you can expect it. You see the full text before it goes anywhere.
Aicountly Billing drafts the reminder; it does not send messages on its own. You can send the text on WhatsApp from your own account, so the message reaches the customer from a number they recognise.
Record promises to pay, and keep them separate from receipts
A customer saying "I will pay on Friday" is not money received. The Promises to pay panel exists for exactly that. When you log a promise, you note the amount they said, the date they said, and how firm it is:
- Tentative: they mentioned a date.
- Confirmed: they committed to it.
When the promised date passes, the row is flagged "Date passed" so a broken promise is visible instead of quietly forgotten. The panel is labelled as customer commitments, not money received, so your collected figures stay honest.
Expected collections: a 30-day view with its limits stated
The Expected collections card projects unpaid sales bills onto the day each one falls due across the next 30 days. It assumes every bill is paid in full on its due date. That is an assumption, not a prediction, and the card says so.
Some bills cannot be placed on a day, so Aicountly Billing lists them separately as left out of the line: bills already overdue, bills with no due date recorded, and bills due after the 30-day window. Setting due dates on invoices makes the forecast more complete.
A weekly collections routine
- Open the Receivables dashboard and note the overdue share of the outstanding balance.
- Look at the 61–90 and over-90 buckets first; these are the bills most likely to turn into bad debt.
- Work down the follow-up priorities, sending a reminder to each customer.
- Log every promise with an honest tentative or confirmed status.
- Check promises whose date has passed and call those customers before sending a new reminder.
- Record receipts as they arrive so the ageing stays true.
For a wider view of your month-end process, see our guide to the Money to Collect workspace and the walkthrough on recording money received in Aicountly Billing. If you invoice recurring clients, recurring bills in Aicountly Billing explains how to raise each invoice on schedule. A short debtors ageing routine pairs well with this dashboard.
Key takeaways
- Outstanding, overdue, due soon and collected are four different measures; read each with its basis.
- Start with the oldest buckets and the few customers who hold most of the overdue money.
- A promise to pay is not a receipt: log it as tentative or confirmed and watch for "Date passed".
- The 30-day forecast assumes full payment on the due date, so treat it as a guide, not a guarantee.
If you want your collections routine in one place, Aicountly Billing gives you the Receivables dashboard alongside invoicing and money received. As always, confirm tax and legal specifics for your business with your chartered accountant.
