Invoice tracker: how to keep track of your invoices

Sent, paid, overdue: what each status means

Keeping track of invoices comes down to three questions: what have I sent, what has been paid, and what is late. With a handful of invoices you can answer them from memory for a while, but memory is exactly what fails in a busy month, when a client pays two invoices in one transfer, or when an invoice from six weeks ago quietly slips out of view. An invoice tracker is a list that answers the three questions for you, and it does that by giving every invoice a status.

A draft is an invoice you've made but the client hasn't seen, so nobody owes you anything yet. Once you've sent it, the invoice is open (some tools say sent or unpaid): the client has it, the amount is owed, and the clock on your payment terms is running. When the full amount has arrived in your account, the invoice is paid and you can stop thinking about it. Overdue isn't a step you set by hand. It is what an open invoice becomes when its due date passes without payment, so a good tracker works it out from the date instead of relying on you to remember.

That makes the due date the date that drives everything else. An invoice for $1,200 dated March 3 with 30-day terms is due on April 2, which means that on March 20 it is simply open and on April 10 it is eight days late. Without a due date your tracker has no date to measure against, so nothing ever shows up as late and there's no natural point at which to chase it, which is one reason to put clear payment terms such as Net 30 on every invoice. Add up your open invoices and you have what you're owed; the overdue ones within that total are what needs your attention this week.

What to record for each invoice

Whether you keep your list in a spreadsheet, a notebook or the tool you invoice with, each invoice needs the same handful of details. They are the ones you'd need to answer a client who calls to ask what they owe, or an accountant who asks what you invoiced last quarter, without opening every PDF again:

• The invoice number
• The client
• The invoice date
• The due date
• The amount, as the total the client has to pay
• The status: draft, sent or paid (overdue follows from the due date)
• The date it was paid
• The reminders you've sent, with their dates

The invoice number is what ties everything together. It links the row in your tracker to the PDF you sent, and because most clients put it in the payment reference, it is also how you match a payment on your bank statement to the right invoice. That only works if every invoice has its own number in a clear series, which the guide to invoice numbers explains.

Record the amount as the total including any sales tax or VAT, because that is the figure you'll see arriving in your bank account and the one you'll quote in a reminder. The date paid looks like a detail, but over a few months it shows how long each client really takes to pay, which helps when you set terms for the next job. Reminders deserve a column for a similar reason: when you write a second reminder you want to know when the first one went, and if a client says they never heard from you, you can tell them the date.

Tracking invoices in a spreadsheet

The classic invoice tracker template is a spreadsheet with one row per invoice and one column for each of the details above. In mid-April, a freelancer's sheet might look like this:

Rather than typing the status, let the sheet work it out. With the due date in column D and the date paid in column G, the formula =IF(G2<>"","Paid",IF(D2<TODAY(),"Overdue","Sent")) in the status column says Paid as soon as you enter a payment date, Overdue once the due date has passed, and Sent otherwise. A second formula such as =SUMIF(F:F,"Overdue",E:E) then adds up everything that is late, so the sheet stops being a record and starts telling you what to do.

The weak point of a spreadsheet is that it is a second copy of information that already lives on your invoices, and every copy is made by hand. Typing $1,520 instead of $1,250 is an easy slip, and then your total is wrong and you may chase a client for an amount they don't recognize. Copying is also easy to put off, so an invoice sent on a Friday afternoon may reach the sheet a week later, or never.

The bigger problem is that a spreadsheet only knows what you tell it. If a payment arrives and you don't enter the date, the formula keeps saying Overdue, and the worst thing a tracker can do is lead you to remind a client who paid days ago. None of this makes a spreadsheet a bad choice, but it does mean the sheet is only as reliable as the routine that keeps it up to date.

A weekly routine for unpaid invoices

Tracking works best as a short, fixed habit rather than something you do when you suddenly wonder whether a client has paid. Fifteen minutes at the same time each week, say Friday morning, is enough for most freelancers and small businesses, and the order you do things in matters.

Start with your bank account, not your list of invoices. Go through the payments that came in since last week, match each one to an invoice by the number in the reference or by the amount, and mark those invoices as paid. Doing this first is what stops you from reminding someone about money that is already in your account, and it is also when you'll notice a payment that is short or one that covers two invoices at once.

Then look at what has fallen overdue since last week. A first reminder a few days after the due date is normal and doesn't need to sound like a complaint, because most late payments are oversights: the invoice went to the wrong inbox, or it is waiting for someone to approve it. Send it, note the date, and look again at anything you reminded last week that still hasn't been paid; the guide to payment reminders has wording for a first, second and final reminder. While you're there, glance at your drafts, because an invoice you meant to send and didn't is money you haven't asked for yet.

Once a month or once a quarter, export the list for your accountant or bookkeeper. They usually want every invoice with its date, amount and status, and a regular export saves you from rebuilding the list in a hurry at the end of the year.

Using the invoice maker as your invoice tracker

If you make your invoices in the free invoice maker, the tracker comes with them, because every invoice you create is already in the list with its number, client, dates and total. There is nothing to copy, so the typing errors and forgotten rows of a spreadsheet don't come up. The overview lists all your invoices and lets you filter them, for example to show only the overdue ones, and the sidebar counts the overdue amount so you can see at a glance how much is late. With a free account the list is saved to your account, so it is the same on your phone and your laptop.

Sending an invoice from the maker, by email or as a link, records it as sent. If you download the PDF and email it from your own mail program instead, the maker can't know it has gone out, so mark it as sent yourself; otherwise it stays a draft and never shows as overdue. Marking it as sent also finalizes it, which means it can no longer be edited, and that is how it should be for a document the client already has. For an invoice sent as a link, you can see how often the client has opened it, which settles the question of whether it ever arrived.

Once an invoice passes its due date unpaid, it says so on screen, with the date it was due and how many days ago that was, next to Send reminder and Mark as paid. The reminder is drafted for you in the invoice's language with the number, amount and due date, and you can change the subject and text first. With an account it goes by email with the invoice PDF attached, or as a link you can share by text message or WhatsApp; without one, you copy the text or open it in your own email app. The overview then shows when you last reminded the client. When the money arrives, mark the invoice as paid, or use Create receipt, which makes a receipt with the date paid and payment method and marks the invoice paid at the same time. For your accountant there is a CSV export of the list and, if you charge VAT, a VAT summary per quarter.

Some things stay with you. The maker doesn't connect to your bank, so it can't see a payment come in or match it to an invoice, which is why the weekly routine starts at the bank. Nothing is sent automatically either: every reminder is one you choose to send, and no late fees or interest are added to an overdue invoice. And it is an invoicing tool with a list, not accounting software, so there are no ledgers, expenses or profit and loss reports, and the CSV export is what you hand to whoever does your books.