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 The record you keep today
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??
The numbers move forward. None of this does.
02 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.
card per invoice, kept for its whole life — number and all
separate records holding the story, each readable on its own
rows ever deleted — a removal is a mark, never a disappearance
03 What we compare
| 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 |
04 The part that matters
Follow the chip.
A system that alerts you, or a system that can be audited afterwards.
05 How a period runs
06 Where the chasing goes
Three ways a person is told, and every one of them is addressed to somebody.
On the card
A comment thread sits on the action item itself. Name somebody with an @ and they are told — in the app, and by email if they want it. The thread stays on the record with everything else about that invoice.
@Anil the credit note never arrived. Hold again, or pay it?
By email
A digest, at an hour the reader chooses, of the tasks that belong to them. It arrives at the start of the day a task is due, not the end of it — a reminder at 23:59 arrives after the day it was meant to protect.
Due today · 3 tasks · Kestrel Supplies, Harrow & Blake, Calder Utilities
In Slack
A firm connects its workspace once. Slack is not a second email: the digest goes to the inbox, and Slack interrupts about a single task when that one is due.
Due today at 5:00 pm: Kestrel Supplies Ltd · invoice 4821 — $1,803.00
Every notice is addressed to the one person the task belongs to. A reminder sent to two people is a reminder sent to neither.
07 Four rules the system will not let you break
08 What is on the record afterwards
This is the history behind the card in the hero, read from the invoice itself.
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.
09 What firms ask first
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.
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, and nothing is ever hard-deleted.
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.