A total of what customers owe you is a useful number. It is also a number that hides the problem. Fifty thousand rupees owed by customers who will pay this week is a healthy business. Fifty thousand owed by customers who stopped paying two months ago is a crisis. The total looks the same.
An ageing report fixes that. It sorts what is owed by how old it is. Once you can read one, you know who to call today, who to leave alone and who to stop delivering to.
What ageing means
Ageing counts the days since an amount became due. A jar delivered and billed on the 5th is 10 days old on the 15th. If it is still unpaid on the 5th of next month, it is 30 days old.
The report groups every unpaid amount into buckets.
- 0-30 days. Recent. This is normal credit. Most of your customers live here every month.
- 31-60 days. Late. The customer has skipped at least one billing cycle. Something needs a conversation.
- 60+ days. Old. The chance of collecting falls with every week. This bucket needs a decision, not a reminder.
The bucket matters more than the amount. A customer owing ₹500 in the 60+ bucket tells you more than a customer owing ₹5,000 in the 0-30 bucket.
Which customers to call first
Do not start at the top of the list by size alone. Use this order.
- Large amounts in 60+. Highest risk and highest value. Call these first, and in person if you can.
- Any amount in 60+ that is small but old. These customers have learned that nothing happens when they ignore you. Fix that.
- Large amounts in 31-60. They have not yet become a habit. A friendly call now saves a hard call later.
- Customers who moved up a bucket since last week. A customer who was in 0-30 and is now in 31-60 has just slipped. Catch them early.
- Everyone in 0-30. Leave them alone, apart from the normal month-end invoice.
Customers who are good payers and just forgot are easy. The ones who keep moving up each week are the ones to watch.
Two kinds of “owed” that look the same
A customer’s balance mixes two situations that need different actions.
- Invoiced, unpaid. You raised an invoice and the customer has it. They owe you, and they know. This is a collection problem.
- Delivered, not yet invoiced. Jars went out, but no invoice exists yet. The customer may not know the figure. This is a billing problem, and it is your delay.
If you call a customer about money for which they have never received an invoice, you will start an argument you did not need. Before collecting, separate the two. Raise the missing invoices first. Then chase the invoiced part.
This also changes how you read ageing. If a large share of a customer’s balance is delivered and not invoiced, the lateness is partly yours.
A weekly collection routine
Collection works when it is small, regular and boring. A routine that takes thirty minutes every week beats a heroic effort once a quarter.
- Pick one day. Monday morning works for many owners, since customers are at work and money moves early in the week.
- Open the report. Note the total in each bucket. Write the three numbers down. Next week you compare.
- Raise missing invoices. Anything delivered and not invoiced gets an invoice before you call.
- Call the 60+ list. Ask for a date and an amount. Record what they promised.
- Message the 31-60 list. A short, polite message with the amount and the invoice dates.
- Check last week’s promises. Whoever promised Friday and did not pay gets a second call, and their promise is noted again.
- Record every payment the day it arrives. An unrecorded payment makes a paying customer look late and wastes your next call.
Over a month, the 60+ bucket should shrink and the 31-60 bucket should not grow. If both grow, your problem is upstream, in billing delays or in who you give credit to.
When to pause deliveries
Stopping supply is uncomfortable, and it should be a rule you set in advance and apply the same way to everyone. A few guidelines.
- Decide the trigger before you need it. For example, any customer with an amount in the 60+ bucket and no agreed payment date gets a warning, then a pause.
- Warn first. Tell the customer on what date supply will stop and what amount, paid by when, will restart it.
- Treat small customers and large customers the same. A rule you bend for one customer will be tested by all of them.
- Keep delivering to a customer on a written payment plan, as long as they keep to it.
- Collect the empties. A paused customer still holds your jars. Arrange to take them back before the relationship ends.
Pausing is a last step, and the best use of the ageing report is to catch the problem before you reach it. For more on the causes, read how to stop credit leakage.
Example: reading a report line by line
This is an Example with made-up round numbers. It is illustrative only. It is not a result or an average from any business.
| Bucket | Amount owed | Customers |
|---|---|---|
| 0-30 days | ₹40,000 | 18 |
| 31-60 days | ₹15,000 | 6 |
| 60+ days | ₹10,000 | 3 |
| Total | ₹65,000 |
Read it line by line.
0-30 days, ₹40,000. Healthy credit, about 60 percent of the total. No action beyond normal invoicing.
31-60 days, ₹15,000, six customers. This is the warning bucket. At an average of ₹2,500 each, these are not huge amounts, but they are late. Message all six this week. Find out whether any of them was in 0-30 last week, since those are the new slips.
60+ days, ₹10,000, three customers. Fifteen percent of the total owed, sitting with only three customers. Perhaps one of them owes ₹7,000 and the others ₹1,500 each. Call the ₹7,000 customer first, in person if possible. Ask for a date. If no date is given, move to the pause rule you set earlier.
Total, ₹65,000. On its own, this number says little. The split says that a little over a third of the money (₹25,000) is late, and a smaller part of that is old. Next week, compare the three bucket totals with these.
Now suppose the 60+ customer says they never received an invoice for the last month. Check the ledger. If part of the balance is delivered and not yet invoiced, raise the invoice and give a fair due date. The lateness for that part was not theirs.
How Pyaau helps
Pyaau has a dues report with ageing buckets for 0-30, 31-60 and 60+ days, and it lists the customers owing most. Each customer has a ledger. The balance is marked “Owes you” or “Credit”, and it separates invoiced unpaid from delivered not yet invoiced, so you know whether to collect or to bill. Invoices and payments sit in one list per customer. Payments are applied to the oldest invoice first, and each invoice shows Paid, Part paid or Unpaid. There is a Collect payment action on the ledger to record what arrives.
To go deeper on the billing side, read month-end billing without disputes. The credit customer ledger page shows how a customer balance is kept, and the credit leakage calculator helps you size the problem.