How to know who owes you money, at a glance
On this page
- 1.How to chase late-paying customers (without the awkward email)
- 2.How to know who owes you money, at a glance
Accounts receivable is the money customers owe you. Here's how the aging view in Ledgers shows who owes what — and how overdue — at a glance, built automatically from your invoices and bank feed.
The pain: you can't see who owes you
Quick question: right now, how much money are you owed? By whom? And how long has each amount been outstanding?
If you had to think hard about that — or open a folder and start adding things up — you're not alone. Most founders carry a rough, anxious sense of "a few thousand out there somewhere" but couldn't give you the real figure or name the slow payers. That's a dangerous blind spot. The money customers owe you (called accounts receivable — money owed to you) is real money your business has earned. Not knowing where it stands means you can't plan, can't chase the right people, and can't tell whether next month is going to be tight.
The frustrating part is that the information exists — it's in every invoice you've sent. It's just scattered, and nobody's totted it up into a single picture. Here's how to get that picture without becoming a spreadsheet.
The hard way today: building the picture by hand
To answer "who owes me money?" without a system, you have to assemble it yourself.
In a spreadsheet, that means keeping a running list of every invoice — who, how much, when sent, when due, paid or not — and updating it every time money lands. Miss a few updates and the list lies to you: it shows invoices as outstanding that were paid last week, or vice versa. Then, to see who's overdue and by how much, you'd sort it, work out the days past due for each one, and group them into buckets. It's a fiddly report that's out of date the moment you stop typing.
Xero and similar tools can produce an aged-receivables report, which is genuinely better — but you still have to go and run it, and it's only as accurate as your reconciliation. If your records and your bank haven't been tied out, the report shows invoices as unpaid that the customer actually settled, and you end up chasing people who already paid (mortifying) or trusting money that isn't really coming.
The core problem is the same as with chasing: the answer depends on you keeping a manual record perfectly current. On a busy month, you won't — so the one view that tells you whether you're about to run short is exactly the view you can't trust.
How it's automatic in Ledgers: the receivables aging view
In Ledgers, "who owes me money" isn't a report you build — it's a live view that's always correct, because it's assembled from the invoices you've sent and the payments your bank feed has seen.
Here's how it works.
Every invoice feeds the view automatically. When you send an invoice (see how to send a professional invoice), it's already in your receivables. You don't re-key anything into a separate list — the invoice is the record.
Payments mark themselves off via the bank feed. When a customer pays, Ledgers matches the incoming payment to its invoice and removes it from what's outstanding — automatically, because reconciliation runs continuously in the background. So the view shows what's genuinely still owed today, never invoices that were quietly paid last week.
The aging view sorts it by how overdue it is. This is the part that earns its keep. Ledgers groups what you're owed into bands — not yet due, 1–30 days late, 31–60, 60+ — so you can see at a glance which money is fresh and which has gone stale. The oldest, most at-risk amounts rise to the top, by customer, with totals.
It connects straight to action. The slow payers in the view are the same invoices that automatic reminders are already chasing for you (see how to chase late-paying customers), and you can send a customer a full statement in a click. Seeing the problem and fixing it are the same screen.
What you'd see and do
You open the receivables view and the question answers itself: a single total of everything you're owed, broken down by customer, sorted by how overdue each amount is. You can see in five seconds that most of it is fresh, that one client is sitting at 45 days late with £4,000, and that nothing's drifted past 60.
That changes how you run the month. You know your real cash position isn't just the bank balance — it's the bank balance plus the £9,000 genuinely on its way, minus the one £4,000 lump that's gone quiet and needs a firmer nudge. You spot a slow payer becoming a problem while it's still small. And because the view is built from your live data, you trust it enough to act on it — no chasing people who've already paid, no nasty surprises.
Knowing who owes you, at a glance, stops being a quarterly panic and becomes a thing you check in seconds — the difference between guessing at your cash flow and actually knowing it.
Ready to always know where you stand? In Ledgers, the receivables aging view shows who owes you what — and how overdue — at a glance, built automatically from your invoices and bank feed, so it's always current. See your numbers without learning accounting → start free.
Then collect it without the awkward email: How to chase late-paying customers →
And get the invoices flowing in the first place: How to send a professional invoice →
Frequently asked questions
What is accounts receivable?
Accounts receivable is the money your customers owe you for work you've already done or goods you've supplied — invoices you've sent that haven't been paid yet. It's real money your business has earned, just not collected. Money you owe to *others* is the opposite: accounts payable.
What is an accounts receivable aging report?
It's a view of everything you're owed, grouped by how overdue it is — typically "not yet due," "1–30 days," "31–60 days" and "60+ days." It shows you at a glance which money is fresh and which has gone stale and needs chasing. In Ledgers this view is live and built automatically.
How do I find out who owes me money?
Add up every invoice you've sent that hasn't been paid. By hand that means keeping a perfectly current list; in Ledgers it's a live receivables view, assembled automatically from your invoices and your bank feed, so it's always accurate without you maintaining anything.
Why does the money I'm owed matter as much as my bank balance?
Because your true cash position is your bank balance plus what's genuinely coming in, minus what's at risk. A healthy-looking bank balance can hide the fact that you're owed thousands by a customer who's gone quiet — which is exactly why the aging view matters. (See *what is working capital?*)
See your numbers without learning accounting
Ledgers does the bookkeeping — bank feeds, VAT, year-end — and keeps your accountant in the loop. Free for pre-revenue founders.
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