What should a freelance payment tracker actually record?

Client and contact, what was agreed, the deliverables, the fee and currency, the invoice number and submission/Finance acceptance dates, the agreed due-date start event, the due date, any promised payment date, and the date money actually arrived. Anything less and you cannot tell a late invoice from one you never sent.

How do I know an invoice is genuinely unpaid?

Compare it against your bank records, not your memory. In DUE you import a bank CSV yourself, review duplicates and confirm suggested matches against invoices. There is no bank feed, so DUE shows how fresh your last import is and asks you to confirm before you chase anyone.

Does DUE chase clients for me?

No. DUE flags an invoice once its recorded due date has passed. You check the payment status and confirm it is still unpaid; DUE then prepares a personalised draft from the invoice details. You review and edit the wording and send it yourself from your own email.

Can DUE read my email to find jobs?

Your professional DUE brand-work address is reserved, but sending and receiving through it are not live yet. You can paste, upload or manually add a brief, or optionally connect Outlook so DUE can read relevant mailbox messages. A reserved DUE address alone gives DUE no access to your personal inbox.

Guide

A freelancer payment tracker that tells you what is actually unpaid

Freelance payment tracking breaks down when the record of the work lives in four places: the brief in an inbox, the deliverables in a notes app, the invoice in a PDF folder and the payment in a bank statement nobody reads until tax time. A payment tracker is simply the one place where those four agree. This page explains what to track, how to run it weekly, and what DUE records without pretending your bank or inbox is live.

The seven fields that matter

A tracker fails when it records too little to act on. At minimum, every job needs:

1. Client and contact. The company that pays, and the person who approves. They are often not the same, and the approver rarely controls the payment run.
2. What was agreed. One or two lines of scope in the client's own words, kept with the original message.
3. Deliverables and their status. Not started, in progress, delivered, approved. This is what makes an invoice defensible.
4. Fee and currency. Including whether it is a fixed fee, a day rate or a deposit plus balance.
5. Invoice number and issue date. Sequential, so nothing silently goes missing.
6. Due date. Derived from an explicit agreed date, or from the agreed number of days and starting event (invoice date, receipt of a valid invoice, approval or contractually stated month-end). Net 30 alone is ambiguous; vague terms should be set by you, not inferred.
7. Payment received date. The single field that turns a tracker from a to-do list into a cash position.

Also record the AP email or portal, when Finance received and accepted the valid invoice, any PO or administrative blocker, and any promised payment date. A promised date is a follow-up commitment, not payment received. Confirm the due-date starting event rather than guessing.

Separate what is ready, due and overdue

Work can be ready to invoice as soon as its agreed billing trigger is met. An invoice still inside the payment terms you agreed with the client is outstanding, but not overdue. An unpaid invoice past its due date may need a follow-up once you have checked recent bank records and any payment advice, including payments received under a different reference.

One avoidable mistake is chasing a client who already paid. It costs trust that took months to earn, for a payment that arrived under a payer name you did not recognise.

A ten-minute weekly routine

Review new client messages and turn accepted work into a tracked job with dated deliverables.
Mark anything you finished this week as delivered, so the invoice matches reality.
Invoice every job whose invoice trigger has been reached — delivery, approval or publication.
Import the latest bank CSV and confirm the matches it suggests.
Only then, look at what is genuinely past due and write the follow-ups you need to send.

How DUE does this, precisely

DUE is built to be truthful about what it knows. Here is exactly what it does and does not do:

Capture. Your reserved DUE address is not receiving mail yet. Paste email text, upload a PDF or screenshot, add the Collab manually, or use connected Outlook.
Extraction with review. DUE proposes the client, scope, deliverables, amounts and dates. You confirm or correct them before a job is created. Uncertain messages stay in review rather than being guessed into your records.
Invoicing. You create the invoice from the tracked work. You download the PDF and send it yourself, from your own email, under your own name.
Payment. Mark an invoice paid manually, or import a bank CSV, review duplicates and confirm suggested matches. There is no bank feed and no live connection to your bank, so DUE displays how fresh the imported data is.
Follow-up. DUE flags overdue invoices. You confirm the payment is still missing, DUE prepares an editable draft from the invoice details, and you review the wording and send it yourself.

Common questions

What should a freelance payment tracker actually record?: Client and contact, what was agreed, the deliverables, the fee and currency, the invoice number and submission/Finance acceptance dates, the agreed due-date start event, the due date, any promised payment date, and the date money actually arrived. Anything less and you cannot tell a late invoice from one you never sent.
How do I know an invoice is genuinely unpaid?: Compare it against your bank records, not your memory. In DUE you import a bank CSV yourself, review duplicates and confirm suggested matches against invoices. There is no bank feed, so DUE shows how fresh your last import is and asks you to confirm before you chase anyone.
Does DUE chase clients for me?: No. DUE flags an invoice once its recorded due date has passed. You check the payment status and confirm it is still unpaid; DUE then prepares a personalised draft from the invoice details. You review and edit the wording and send it yourself from your own email.
Can DUE read my email to find jobs?: Your professional DUE brand-work address is reserved, but sending and receiving through it are not live yet. You can paste, upload or manually add a brief, or optionally connect Outlook so DUE can read relevant mailbox messages. A reserved DUE address alone gives DUE no access to your personal inbox.

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