Every open item has a story.
Decisions carry into the next period. DueStory checks them against what the books actually did, and raises a card wherever the two disagree.
For firms where one person prepares the AP and another reviews it.
The card moves itself. Press a date to go back.
The decision
Part Pay $1,200.00
Approved. To be carried out this cycle.
On the new aging
Balance $1,803.00
Exception
The part payment never reached the books.
Confirm whether the payment went out.
Same card. Same number. Nobody re-typed anything.
◆
You decided. The client paid — or did not.
Today you find out by accident, a month late.
01 What changes for your reviewer
Twelve invoices, every one decided and approved. Nine carried forward untouched. Three are asking for you.
Nine rows nobody has to read again is where the hours go.
02 Where DueStory fits
The books stay where they are. So does the way you pay. DueStory takes the aging you already export, holds the decisions, and hands you the differences a month later.
Stays as it is
QuickBooks Online
The books. Each month you export the A/P Aging Detail, exactly as you do today.
DueStory
Decide → Review → Close
Every past-due invoice gets a decision and a reviewer. The period closes. When the next aging arrives, it is compared with what was decided, and the differences are raised.
Stays as it is
Your payment platform
Bill.com, the bank, a cheque run — payment happens where it happens for you now.
03 What changes from today
Today
The numbers move forward each month. The reasons live in three places, and none of them is the ledger.
Re: Kestrel Supplies
Hold 4821 until the 15th — they’ve promised a credit note.
part pay agreed on the call — S.
why did we hold 4821??
Next month the reviewer reconstructs it — or does not.
With DueStory
One path, every month, and the second month reads the first.
And the chasing stays attached to the item.
04 Follow one invoice
The same invoice as the card in the hero. Seven steps, one card, one number throughout.
Decision · 28 February
Kestrel Supplies Ltd, invoice 4821, balance $1,803.00. The processor records Part Pay $1,200.00. The reviewer approves it. The period closes, and the card carries the decision, the names and the date.
Comparison · 31 March
For every invoice that was decided, what the new file shows is set against what was decided. These are the five things it looks for.
| What you decided | What the next file shows | What we raise |
|---|---|---|
| Full Pay $2,143.13 | Still open at $2,143.13 | Payment never cleared |
| Part Pay $2,100.00 | Only $730.38 came off | Part payment fell short |
| Autopay, run due the 15th | Balance untouched | Autopay did not run |
| Hold | Balance up $612.00 | New charges on a held invoice |
| Any decision | Invoice is gone | Confirm it was settled |
Exception · raised automatically
Exception
Confirm whether the payment went out.
The balance is still $1,803.00. The chip goes on the same card, with the figures. Nobody re-typed anything, and nobody had to notice.
Answered
Was the payment released and not posted, or never released? The answer goes on the card as a new decision. The chip stays.
Reviewed
The new decision arrives for approval with the exception beside it — not instead of it.
Resolved
A system that alerts you, or a system that can be audited afterwards. This one is the second.
History
Read from the invoice itself, newest first. These are the sentences the application writes.
31 Mar 2026
Exception
The part payment never reached the books. Decided $1,200.00, came off $0.00.
Found when the file was uploaded by Sahil (processor)
12 Mar 2026
Closed
Closed. Carried out: Part Pay $1,200.00 of $1,803.00, leaving $603.00 outstanding.
Sahil (processor)
02 Mar 2026
Approved
Approved to proceed. The decision stands for this period.
Anil (reviewer)
28 Feb 2026
Item raised
An action item was raised for this invoice: Part Pay $1,200.00 of $1,803.00.
Sahil (processor)
Four more records read the same way: the vendor, the card, the period and the re-upload.
05 How a period runs
06 Four things the system will not let happen
Each one is enforced in the database, not by a warning on a screen — so it holds for everyone, administrators included.
07 Is it for your firm?
Likely a fit
Probably not, today
08 Your first two periods
Your first period
There is nothing to compare yet. What you have is the baseline the next period will be read against.
Your second period
From here on, every period reads like the second.
09 Questions before you apply
The workflow
One of six: Full Pay, Part Pay (with the amount), Hold, Disputed, Pending Reconciliation, or Defer to Next Report. A blank is not one of them, and the report cannot be submitted while one remains.
It returns to the processor with the reason written on the card. The processor re-decides and resubmits. Both decisions, and the reason, stay in the history.
It is frozen — for everyone, administrators included. Nothing in it can be edited. Anything that needs to change is a new decision in the current period, which is what an audit trail requires.
Its card is marked to confirm it was settled. DueStory does not assume a missing invoice was paid; somebody says so.
The systems around it
QuickBooks Online → Reports → A/P Aging Detail → export as CSV. DueStory expects the report’s standard columns; if one is missing, it names the column and refuses the file rather than guessing.
Not today. You upload the A/P Aging Detail export, and DueStory matches it against the last one. We would rather tell you that now than let you find out on the call.
No, and it is not trying to. Payment happens wherever it happens for you today. DueStory records what your team decided and checks whether the books agree.
They do different jobs. A payment platform executes the payment and records the approval that released it. DueStory holds the decision — including every decision where nothing is paid, like a hold, a dispute or a deferral — carries it into the next period, and tells you when the books disagree with it. If an invoice is settled outside that platform, or deliberately not settled at all, the reasoning still needs somewhere to live.
Your clients’ data
In a database walled off per firm, with the separation enforced at the data layer rather than in the screens — so a query that forgot to filter still returns nothing belonging to anybody else. Only an address we have invited can create an account at all, and that rule lives in the database too. Two-step sign-in is available, and a firm can require it of everyone. Documents sit in a private store reachable only through a permission check.
Nothing is hard-deleted. A removed record is marked removed and stays readable in the history. A person who leaves your firm is deactivated, not erased, so what they did stays on the record.
Starting
One aging export and two people — someone to prepare and someone to review. There is no implementation project.
DueStory
Every open item has a story.
For firms where somebody prepares and somebody else checks. Your real clients, your real periods, and a direct line to the person who built it.
Prefer to talk first? Write to us, or hello@duestory.com.