Every open item has a story.
Decisions carry into the next period. DueStory checks them against what the books did, and raises a card wherever the two disagree — so your reviewer returns to what changed, not to everything already decided.
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. Twelve decisions remembered. Nine carried as expected. Three need another look.
Nine rows that do not need the same review again is where the hours go.
02 Where DueStory fits
The books remember the balance. DueStory remembers the decision. It takes the aging you already export, holds what was decided, 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. Next month’s aging is compared with what was decided.
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 Supply Co.
Hold 4821 until the 15th — they’ve promised a credit note.
part pay agreed on the call — M.
why did we hold 4821??
Next month the reviewer reconstructs it — or does not.
With DueStory
One place, 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. One card, one number, throughout.
Decision · 28 February
Kestrel Supply Co., invoice 4821, balance $1,803.00. The processor records Part Pay $1,200.00; the reviewer approves it; the period closes.
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
You do not have to reconstruct why an invoice is still here. 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 Megan (processor)
12 Mar 2026
Closed
Closed. Carried out: Part Pay $1,200.00 of $1,803.00, leaving $603.00 outstanding.
Megan (processor)
02 Mar 2026
Approved
Approved to proceed. The decision stands for this period.
Mark (reviewer)
28 Feb 2026
Item raised
An action item was raised for this invoice: Part Pay $1,200.00 of $1,803.00.
Megan (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?
Built for accounting firms where AP preparation is delegated but the review still sits with a senior person.
Likely a fit
Probably not, today
08 Your first two periods
Your first period
DueStory learns what you decided.
There is nothing to compare yet. What you have is the baseline the next period will be read against.
Your second period
DueStory checks what happened.
From here on, every period reads like the second — and the longer it runs, the less anybody has to reconstruct.
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.
A tracker can record a decision, and many good ones do. What it cannot do is the rest: carry the same invoice forward as one item with one number, require a second person to approve before the period closes, compare the next aging with what was decided and raise the difference, or keep the exception and its answer on the record afterwards. DueStory does those four things. The spreadsheet is where the reasoning went because there was nowhere else for it to go.
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.
Security and your clients’ data
In the United States — the database in Amazon’s US East region (Northern Virginia), and the application in the same region, because every page load is a round trip between them. It is encrypted on the way and encrypted where it is stored. Uploaded documents sit in a private store and are handed out only through links that expire.
By the database, not by the screens. Every table carries the rule that a person may read only the rows belonging to their own firm, and the database enforces it row by row — so a query that forgot to filter returns nothing belonging to anybody else. The same layer decides what each person inside your firm may open, and which clients they see. Hiding a button is not how any of this is done.
Only an address you have invited. Nobody can create an account for themselves, and that rule lives in the database as well, not just on the sign-up screen. Sign-in is by Google or by a password. Two-step sign-in is available to everyone, a firm can require it of its whole team, and it is compulsory for anyone who runs DueStory itself. Keys and tokens — a Slack connection, an API key you supply — are encrypted before they are stored and never shown back to anybody, us included.
No. No AI feature is switched on today and nothing is sent to any model. If one is ever switched on it will run on an API key your firm supplies, and the privacy page will say exactly what it receives before it does.
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. A completed period is frozen for everyone, administrators included — the honest way to change something is a new decision today, which is what leaves a trail worth having.
Not yet, and we will not imply otherwise. DueStory is a pilot product and has not been through a SOC 2 audit. What is true today is that the companies it runs on have: the database and sign-in (Supabase), the hosting (Vercel), email delivery (Resend) and the bot check on our forms (Cloudflare) each hold a SOC 2 Type II report. Every company that touches any part of your data is named in our data processing agreement, with what it sees and where it sits — there are six, and there is no seventh. If your firm needs a report for DueStory itself, tell us: that is a decision we will take with the firms that need it, not a box we will quietly tick.
The pilot
All of DueStory, for your firm: every client you bring, every person on your team, the prepare-and-review workflow, the daily email and Slack, and the record. There is no charge during the pilot.
Two completed reporting cycles, or ninety days, whichever comes first. Two cycles is deliberate: the second period is where a decision is carried forward and compared, which is the thing you are here to see.
Nothing during the pilot. We do not ask for a card or any payment details to start, so there is no upfront charge and nothing to cancel. Paid plans, when they exist, will be announced with at least 30 days’ notice and never charged without your firm agreeing to them.
Your firm’s DueStory goes read-only: everything already there can be opened and exported, and nothing new can be added, until a plan is agreed. We tell you before it happens and offer an export of your data first. Your records are never held hostage over a renewal.
Real clients, real periods, and telling us what got in the way. That is the whole ask.
Yes, in small steps. Our rule for every change is that it must not break what already works for you: the old behaviour is kept until the new one is proved, and anything that affects how decisions are recorded is written up in plain English before it is built.
At any time, and in one line. Email support@duestory.com and say your firm is leaving. If you want your data first, say so in the same message and we send you an export; then it is deleted within 30 days. Nothing is held back while you decide — when a trial ends DueStory goes read-only, so everything already there can still be opened and exported.
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.