You track promises to pay from your customers by recording the promised amount and the promised date against that party on the follow-up log, then letting a newer promise supersede the older one. A promise is marked missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag. Promise to pay tracking lives on the party inside the Recovery view in Collect, available on request. At 7 PM on Monday a Guwahati owner logs Barpeta Chemist, ₹45,000, Tuesday. Tuesday's brief shows that promise as due today. A UPI credit at 11:40 PM that reaches Tally at 8:10 AM is a payment, not a broken word. Entries are append-only. The ageing report still shows the bill. The promise is the dated sentence sitting on top of it.
Key Highlights
- Promise to pay tracking records an optional promised amount and promised date on an append-only follow-up log entry whose outcome is promised
- A newer promise supersedes the older one; Monday's sentence stays visible, Wednesday's date is the one that counts
- A promise is marked missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag
In This Article
- How do I track promises to pay from my customers?
- What promise to pay tracking actually records
- The promised amount and the promised date
- When a promise is proven missed
- The newer promise supersedes
- What Tuesday's brief does with a due promise
- Frequently Asked Questions
How do I track promises to pay from my customers?
A retailer saying "kal bhej dunga" is not a plan until it has an amount and a day. Promise to pay tracking is how that sentence becomes both. You log the follow-up against the party, set the outcome to promised, fill the promised amount and the promised date, and set the next-action date to that same day. The payment follow up log is the notebook. The promise fields are the line that the morning can act on.
Tally already knows the bill. It does not know that Monday's call produced ₹45,000 for Tuesday against the oldest of three invoices. Without that date, Tuesday morning is the same printed outstanding list as Monday, and the chemist sits at row 40. With it, the payment recovery dashboard names the promise as due today before the first retailer call.
The caveat that makes the tracking honest is the missed rule. You do not mark a promise broken at midnight. You mark it missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag. That one sentence is the whole product claim. The rest of this article is how a distributor uses it without turning every late UPI into a fight.
What promise to pay tracking actually records
The live object is one follow-up log entry. Channel: call, WhatsApp, in person, or other. Outcome: promised. Promised amount: ₹45,000. Promised date: Tuesday. Next-action date: Tuesday. That is the record. There is no second screen named "promises." Recovery is a view inside Collect, and the promise sits on the party next to ageing and bills.
Outcomes stay in four labels: paid, promised, no answer, disputed. If the chemist will not name a day, the outcome is not promised. Log no answer, or disputed if he is arguing the bill, and pick a next-action date yourself. A promise without a date cannot be proven missed, so it cannot run a morning.
The amount is optional in the field list and mandatory in practice if you want the brief to be useful. "He will pay something tomorrow" is how a ₹1,20,000 party stays at ₹1,20,000. "₹45,000 tomorrow" is a job. On Bills that ₹45,000 is usually one voucher. Name it in the conversation even if the log stores the rupee figure rather than the voucher number. The owner still has to know which bill he was talking about.
Tally remains the book of record. Logging a promise does not allocate a receipt and does not change outstanding. When the money arrives, the receipt still has to land against the bill. The promise is the dated expectation sitting on top of that bill until the receipt appears or the date passes.
The promised amount and the promised date
Two numbers, always together. Amount without a date is a mood. Date without an amount is a courtesy. Tuesday 8:40 only works if both are on the entry.
A Nalbari grocer who says "this week" has not promised. Ask for a day. If he names Friday and will not name rupees, log Friday and the conversation still lacks a figure the brief can print. Push once for an amount. If he will not give one, log the call as no answer or disputed and set Friday as next-action so you still return. Do not store a fake ₹0 promise to make the form happy.
Partial promises are normal. The chemist at ₹1,20,000 naming ₹45,000 is the common case. The remaining ₹75,000 is still outstanding. The promise covers the ₹45,000. When that receipt lands, the party is not clear. The log gets a paid line for the chase that closed, and the leftover bills stay on Parties and Bills. A second promise, later in the week, can cover the rest. The newer promise is then the live one.
Festival weeks produce clusters. Three parties name Saturday because Saturday is when cash hits the till. Log all three. Saturday's brief will be a list of promises due today, which is the correct Saturday, rather than a vague sense that "everyone said weekend." The daily collection brief is built for that list.
When a promise is proven missed
A promise is marked missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag. It is proven missed, not flagged the minute the clock crosses midnight.
The Barpeta chemist is the test. He promised Tuesday. Tuesday 8:40, no receipt yet. The brief shows the promise as due today. That is still a live promise, not a broken one. Tuesday 11:40 PM he pays on UPI. Wednesday 8:10 AM the receipt reaches Tally. Wednesday's brief should not treat him as a liar. The lag is why the brief also names receipts awaiting confirmation. Money may have landed last night. The books may not have it yet.
If Wednesday morning has passed the promised date, Tally still shows no receipt, and the lag window has been allowed, the promise is proven missed. That is the line the owner reads before he calls. It is also the line that later shows on the Team board as promises missed, next to kept and open. The missed mark is a fact about the date and the ledger, not a judgement about the retailer.
Do not skip the lag. A distributor who treats every open bill at 8:01 AM as a broken promise will chase parties whose money is already in the bank, and those parties will stop taking the call. The ageing is allowed to be a few hours behind the UPI. Proven missed waits for that.
Days sales outstanding moving from 58 to 64 is a company number. Three promises proven missed this week, all on Ramesh's parties, is a Tuesday plan. The missed mark is how DSO becomes a conversation.
The newer promise supersedes
Entries are append-only. Monday's ₹45,000 on Tuesday stays on the party when Thursday's visit produces ₹20,000 on Saturday. You add Thursday's entry. You do not open Monday and type a different amount. Monday remains the first sentence. Thursday is the live promise. The older one is superseded, not erased.
That rule stops a party from carrying three "current" dates. Ramesh thinks Saturday. The owner thinks Tuesday. The accountant thinks month end. The log has one live promise: the newest dated entry whose outcome is promised. Everyone else reads that.
It also stops a soft rewrite. A salesman who likes the chemist will, given an edit box, turn Monday's Tuesday into "Friday, he was travelling." Append-only makes him add Friday as a new promise. The Team board will still show Monday's Tuesday as a miss if Tuesday passed with no receipt, and Friday as a new open promise. That is the honest board. A rewritten Monday would hide the miss.
When the outcome later becomes paid, that is another new line, not an edit of the promise. The receipt in Tally is the money. The paid line is how the chase stops. The superseded promise underneath is how you still see that this party had to be asked twice.
What Tuesday's brief does with a due promise
The owner opens the daily brief card in the app. One of the lines it can name is promises due today. On that Tuesday it is Barpeta Chemist, ₹45,000, logged Monday after a call. That is the first call, before the 90-day scroll.
If the receipt has landed, the chemist is off that line. If it has not, the owner calls, visits, or waits out the lag. He does not start by re-asking "did we speak." The log already says they spoke. The question is whether the ₹45,000 moved.
The brief can also name promises proven missed, follow-ups due today, receipts awaiting confirmation, top overdue parties, or All clear. Sharing that card is manual: text through the phone's share sheet, WhatsApp, email, anywhere the phone can send text. The accountant can see the same chemist line without a second export. Nobody should expect the brief to leave the phone on its own.
Reminders are still the company-wide cadence, separate from promises. A WhatsApp on the due-date schedule can carry a UPI payment link once payment collection is active, after KYC. When collection is on, UPI collections run at 0% MDR, with no transaction cap and no monthly fee. Across the platform that is 100+ businesses and ₹17Cr+ collected monthly. The promise on the log is still the human sentence. The reminder is the scheduled nudge. They can run on the same Tuesday. They are not the same object.
On that Tuesday the ageing report still shows ₹18 lakh overdue. Promise to pay tracking also shows the ₹45,000 that was supposed to move today. Tally keeps the bills. The owner keeps the dated sentence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I track promises to pay from my customers?
A: Record the promised amount and the promised date on a follow-up log entry against that party, with outcome promised and the next-action date set to the promised day. Entries are append-only. A newer promise supersedes the older one. A promise is marked missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag.
Q: What does promise to pay tracking store?
A: It stores the optional promised amount and promised date on an append-only follow-up log entry whose outcome is promised. Channel is call, WhatsApp, in person, or other. The promise sits on the party in the Recovery view inside Collect. It does not change Tally outstanding until a receipt is allocated against the bill.
Q: When is a promised payment marked missed?
A: A promise is marked missed only after the promised date has passed and no receipt has landed in Tally for that party, with allowance for sync lag. It is proven missed, not marked the minute the date ticks over. A UPI credit late at night that reaches Tally the next morning is a payment, not a broken word.
Q: What happens if the customer names a new date?
A: Add a new log entry with the new promised amount and date. The older entry stays. The newer promise supersedes it as the live one. You do not edit Monday's sentence into Thursday's sentence.
Q: Does a logged promise send a reminder automatically?
A: No. The promise is a dated line on the party. Reminders run on the company-wide cadence, separate from the log. The daily brief names promises due today when the owner opens the card, and that card is shared by hand through the phone's share sheet if someone else needs the same list.
Q: Can I log a promise without an amount?
A: The promised amount is optional on the entry. A date without an amount is a weak morning. Push once for a rupee figure. If the party will not name one, log no answer or disputed and set a next-action date you chose, rather than storing a fake promise.
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