Getting Paid Collecting through a gateway, recording what arrives by other means, and chasing what does not.

Raising an invoice is the easy part. This is about the money actually arriving.

Two ways money comes in

Through a gateway. The customer pays by card or through an online method, and the invoice updates itself.

Everything else. Bank transfer, cheque, cash, an offset against something. Recorded by hand, and just as much a first-class payment.

Most businesses have both, and the second is usually the larger share for anybody selling to other businesses.

Gateway payments

Where a gateway is connected, an invoice can carry a payment link.

The advantage is not convenience for you, it is removing steps for the customer. A link that opens and takes a card is measurably faster to get paid than a bank transfer that needs somebody to log into a banking system and type a reference.

The reference matters more than the method. The most common cause of an unmatched payment is a customer paying without the invoice reference, and a link removes that failure entirely.

Gateway fees are the trade. For a small invoice they are usually worth paying to be paid this week rather than next month; for a large one they are not, and offering a transfer is reasonable.

Recording a payment by hand

When money arrives another way, record it against the invoice: the amount, the date and the method.

Record it when it arrives, not at month end. A receivables list that is a fortnight behind is a list that produces chasing emails to customers who have already paid, which is the single most damaging thing this surface can do to a relationship.

Record partial payments as partial. Do not round up to paid because it is nearly all there. The balance is what the aging works from.

What posting does

Recording a payment posts to the ledger automatically: the receivable comes down, the cash or bank account goes up.

Nobody makes that entry. It is worth knowing it happens, because it is the reason the reconciliation surface can later check that the sub-ledger and the general ledger agree.

Recording the method

Every payment carries how it arrived: transfer, card, cash, cheque.

It takes a second and it earns its keep twice. It is what lets you see which collection methods actually get used, and it is the first thing anybody looks for when a payment has to be traced months later.

Chasing

The receivables view is the working list.

Sort by age. The oldest invoice is the one at risk, whatever its size.

Chase early and lightly. A note three days after the due date is administrative. A note three weeks after is a conversation about whether you will be paid.

Check it was received before chasing. A meaningful share of overdue invoices were never opened, went to the wrong address, or sat with somebody who left. That is a different message from a payment reminder.

Escalate by the relationship, not by the amount. A small invoice from a customer who always pays is a mistake; a small invoice from one who never does is a decision.

Matching a payment that arrives loose

The awkward case: money in the bank with no clear reference.

The order that works. Match on amount first, since an exact amount usually identifies one invoice. Then on the payer, which narrows it to a customer. Then ask, which is faster than guessing and considerably faster than allocating it wrongly and unwinding it later.

Money held unallocated is uncomfortable and is better than money allocated to the wrong invoice, because the second produces a chase to a customer who paid.

Aging

Receivables are grouped into bands by how late they are.

Read the shape rather than the total. Debt moving from the newest band into the next one faster than it used to is the earliest warning available that something has changed, and it shows up here weeks before it shows up in cash.

When a customer disputes

A disputed invoice is not an overdue one, and treating them the same distorts both your aging and your relationship.

Record what is disputed and why, keep it visible, and resolve it as a conversation. A dispute sitting quietly in the overdue band generates chasing that makes the underlying disagreement worse.

Where the dispute is legitimate, cancel and reissue for the agreed amount rather than accepting a partial payment against the original and leaving a balance nobody will ever clear.

Cash

The cash position and its projection come from the same records: what is owed, what is due out, and when.

Treat the projection as a shape rather than a forecast. It assumes invoices are paid on their terms, and the aging is the evidence about whether that assumption holds for your customers.

Fees and what actually lands

Gateway payments arrive net of a fee, and the difference has to go somewhere in the accounts.

Worth knowing so the numbers are not a surprise: the invoice is settled at its full value, the bank receives less, and the difference is a cost. The posting handles it, and the mapping layer decides which account the fee lands in.

For a business where fees are material, that account is worth looking at once a quarter. It is frequently larger than anybody expects.

Refunds

A payment can be reversed where something has to be given back.

Do it through the record rather than only in the gateway. A refund issued in the payment provider and not recorded here leaves an invoice showing as paid and a bank balance that disagrees, and reconciliation is where that surfaces, usually weeks later.

Two habits

Reconcile weekly, not monthly. Fifteen minutes matching what arrived against what is recorded. It keeps the receivables list honest, and an honest list is what makes chasing safe.

Never chase from memory. Everything needed is on the record: what was sent, when, whether it was paid in part, and what was said last time. Chasing from recollection is how a customer gets asked twice.