How to read bills and outstanding

Takkada keeps two bill lists for every business: the bills your customers have not paid you, and the bills you have not paid your suppliers. Both lists are built from the same open bills your Tally company already holds, grouped by party and sorted by how long the money has been waiting. This guide explains how to read them, how to change the age buckets, and where reading a report stops and chasing money starts.

Before you start

• Your business must be connected and synced, because these lists come from the bills in your Tally company.
• You need permission to see reports. If you do not have it, the Reports tab shows "Reports are turned off for you", with the line "Your admin decides who can see the business reports." Ask your admin; nothing on that screen is a buy button.
• Following up — sending a reminder, ticking bills, marking a party as chased — is a separate permission from reading the report. A person can be allowed to read the list and still not be allowed to send anything from it.
• Nothing on these screens changes a bill. You cannot edit, settle or delete a bill here. Money is recorded through a receipt or a payment.

Receivable and payable are two views of the same idea

"Bills Receivable" is money customers owe you. "Bills Payable" is money you owe suppliers. They are the same screen with the sides swapped, so once you can read one you can read the other. The card at the top shows "Total Receivable" or "Total Payable" — the whole open amount, counted as on today.

Follow-up actions live on the receivable side. On the payable side you get the same reading, filtering and export, without the reminder actions, because the app does not chase your own suppliers on your behalf.

Read the list

1. Open the Reports tab and choose the bills list you want.
2. The list opens grouped. Use "By group" to keep Tally's groups, or "By party" for one flat row per party.
3. Each row shows the party's open amount split across age buckets, so you can see at a glance whether the money is fresh or old.
4. Tap a party to open its own page and see the individual bills behind that total.
5. On the party page, "Open bills" lists each unpaid bill with its own age.

Due and overdue are not the same thing

A bill is due from the day it is raised. It becomes overdue only after its credit period has passed. The party rows show both: an overdue amount and, beside it, the part that is not due yet. A large total with nothing overdue is a healthy customer inside their credit terms. A small total that is entirely overdue is the one to call.

Change the ageing periods

The age buckets are yours to set.

1. Open a bills list and tap the ageing periods control.
2. In "Ageing periods", add or remove dividers — each divider is a number of days.
3. Save. The columns, the sort and any export you take will all use the new buckets.

These periods are stored on the device you set them on. If you also use Takkada on a phone and a laptop, set them in both places if you want the same grid.

Sort and search

• Sorting offers largest outstanding first, smallest first, and "Overdue (oldest first)" when you want the most-delayed parties at the top.
• Search filters the list by party name. If nothing matches you get a clear empty state, not a blank screen.
• When there is genuinely nothing open, the screen says so rather than showing an empty table.

Take the list away with you

1. Open the export control on the bills list.
2. Choose "Export to Excel" for a grid you can sort and filter yourself, or "Export to PDF" for a print-ready sheet.
3. The file carries the same view, sort and ageing periods that are on your screen, so the paper matches what you were looking at.

Where reading ends and collecting begins

On the receivable side, opening a party gives you the follow-up actions. Which ones you see depends on your permission and on what the party record holds.

1. Open the party from the receivable list.
2. Tick the bills you want to talk about, or leave them all.
3. Use "Share PDF" to send a statement yourself through any app, or "Send on WhatsApp" to send it through Takkada.
4. Use "Mark followed up" to record that you have chased this party, so it drops down your list for a few days.

Sending on WhatsApp uses your business's message credits and is covered in the WhatsApp reminders guide. Marking a party as followed up is only a note to yourself — it does not tell the customer anything.

When it does not look right

The Reports tab says reports are turned off for you. You do not have the reports permission on this business. Only an admin can change that.

A party shows a big total but no bills you recognise. Open the party page and look for "Brought forward from earlier years". Older-year balances arrive as one carried-forward figure rather than as individual bills, so the total can be larger than the bills listed under it.

The reminder buttons are missing or greyed out. Three ordinary reasons: you do not have the reminder permission, no bills are ticked, or the party has no usable mobile number saved. The screen names the reason beside the button — read it before assuming the app is broken.

A bill you just settled is still showing. The lists read your Tally company. A receipt or payment has to reach Tally and come back before the bill closes here. Check the sync screen if it has been a while.

The totals do not match Tally. Compare the as-on date first: this list is always counted as on today, so it will not match a Tally report you ran for an earlier date. If the dates agree and the numbers still differ, check that the business has finished syncing.