The problem with the credit notebook
It works until it does not. Pages fill, a customer's entries are spread across three of them, the arithmetic is done in the margin, and when the customer says “I paid that last week” there is no clean way to show otherwise. The notebook records transactions. What you actually need is a balance.
One balance per person, across everything
The rule that fixes most of it: every customer has exactly one running balance, and every transaction with them, from any of your books, moves that balance. A customer who buys from the shop and from the delivery van has one figure, not two. When they walk in, you look at one number.
The same applies to suppliers, in the other direction. The person you owe has one balance too.
Start from the right number
Most shops do not start a credit record from zero. Give each customer an opening balance, the amount they owed the day you started, and every entry after that is relative to it. Without this step the record is correct and useless at the same time.
Record the payment, not just the sale
The credit sale is easy to remember to write down. The part-payment three weeks later, handed over in a hurry, is the one that goes missing, and it is the one the customer remembers. Record payments with the same seriousness as sales, at the moment they happen.
Settle disputes with a statement
When a balance is disputed, the wrong tool is memory and the right tool is a statement: every entry against that person, dated, with the running balance beside it. Sent to their phone, it ends most arguments in a minute, because both sides are looking at the same page. Keep your business name on it so it reads as a document, not a text message.
Do not message customers automatically
Some apps send reminders to your customers on your behalf. Think hard before allowing that. The relationship with a credit customer is the asset; a robotic reminder at the wrong moment can cost more than the balance. Send the statement yourself, when you judge it right.
The short version
- One balance per person, across all your books.
- Opening balances for what was already owed.
- Payments recorded as carefully as sales.
- A dated statement, sent by you, when there is a disagreement.
MoneyBook keeps one balance per contact across every book and produces the PDF statement in one tap. How customer balances work.
Try it on your own books
One book, about a minute. Free to record, forever.