Payment tracking in AccBooks AI

Overview

AccBooks tracks every customer invoice from issue through to full payment — matching bank receipts automatically and giving you a live view of your outstanding debtor position.

The debtors dashboard

Go to Invoices → Debtors for a real-time view of all outstanding customer balances:

• Total outstanding
• Amount due this week
• Amount overdue (broken down by 0–30 days, 31–60 days, 61–90 days, 90+ days)
• Customer-level breakdown with individual invoice detail

This is your accounts receivable ageing analysis — essential for cashflow management.

Automatic payment matching

When a customer payment arrives in your bank account, AccBooks attempts to match it to outstanding invoices automatically:

• Exact match (amount + customer name): instantly matched and invoice marked as paid.
• Partial match (amount or reference matches): shown in the reconciliation queue as a suggested match for you to confirm.
• No match: appears as unmatched in the reconciliation queue.

To manually match a bank receipt to an invoice:

1. Find the receipt in the reconciliation queue.
2. Click Match to invoice.
3. Search by customer name, invoice number or amount.
4. Select the correct invoice.
5. If the payment is a partial payment, AccBooks marks the invoice as partially paid and leaves the remaining balance outstanding.

Recording payments received

If you received cash or cheque rather than a bank transfer:

1. Open the invoice.
2. Click Record payment.
3. Enter the payment date, amount and method.
4. AccBooks posts the payment and marks the invoice as paid (or partially paid).

Chasing overdue invoices

AccBooks helps you follow up automatically:

Go to Settings → Invoice chasing → Reminders. Set up a sequence:

Rule	Example
3 days before due	Send a gentle “payment coming up” reminder
On due date	Send “payment due today”
7 days overdue	Send a firm reminder
21 days overdue	Send a formal notice
30 days overdue	Flag for manual follow-up

Each reminder is emailed to the customer with a copy of the invoice and a payment link. Reminders stop automatically when the invoice is paid.

Payment links

AccBooks generates a unique payment link for every invoice. When you email an invoice, the link is included in the email footer. Customers click it and pay by card or open banking — the payment is matched to the invoice automatically.

To add a payment link to an existing invoice: open the invoice and click Copy payment link.

Statement of account

Send a customer a full statement of their account (all invoices, payments and credit notes) by going to Customers → [customer] → Send statement. This is useful for clearing up discrepancies with customers who dispute their balance.

Partial payments and payment plans

For customers paying in instalments:

1. Record each payment as it arrives using Record payment on the invoice.
2. AccBooks shows the remaining balance and payment history on the invoice.

There’s no limit on the number of partial payments — AccBooks marks the invoice as fully paid only when the outstanding balance reaches £0.00.

Writing off bad debts

If a customer is unable to pay (insolvent, dispute, etc.), write off the debt:

1. Open the invoice.
2. Click Write off as bad debt.
3. AccBooks posts the write-off to the bad debt expense account and reclaims the VAT (if applicable).

See Credit notes and refunds for full details.