Which charge did that payment pay?

October 16, 2026 · 6 min read · by James, half-owner of a dance studio

Most studio software, ours included until recently, keeps a family's account as a running balance. Charges go up, payments go down, and the number at the bottom is what they owe. That's enough most of the time.

Then a parent hands you a check and says "this is for the costume," and the balance has no way to say so. Or someone asks "Is October paid?" and the honest answer is "they owe $90, but which $90 is a matter of opinion." Or a family pays ahead for performance fees that haven't been posted yet, and the next time you look, that money has quietly paid off an old registration fee instead.

Paid and owed, per charge

Studios can now turn on applying payments and credits to specific charges. With it on, every charge on the ledger shows whether it's paid, partly paid, or unpaid, and every payment shows what it paid for.

Most of the time nobody has to do anything. Payments are applied oldest first automatically, the way most people think about it: your September tuition gets paid before October's. A card processing fee is paid by the payment it came with. Credits work the same way. If a charge is voided after it was paid, the payment moves to the next open charge on its own.

When the family tells you what it's for

When you record a payment, Add Payment shows the family's open charges, filled in oldest first. Change the amounts to match what they're paying for. A running total ("Applied $90 of $150") keeps you honest as you type, and anything left over is applied automatically.

Sometimes the leftover isn't for anything on the ledger yet, like money handed over for performance fees you haven't posted. Check "Save the rest for upcoming charges," and the remainder waits for charges added after the payment instead of paying off older ones.

Starting from where you are

Nobody wants to re-match three years of history. You pick a start date, and Presently matches payments and charges from that date forward. Whatever a family owed (or had in credit) before then carries in as a starting balance. When a studio turns this on, we run a one-time catch-up that fills in the matching for every existing family, with a dry run first so we can check it together.

Reports that answer the real question

The Paid & Owed report shows who has paid which charges and who still owes, for any date range, grouped by category, class, or family, one row per dancer. It's the report for "who has paid for costumes and who hasn't" before you place the order, and "how much October tuition is still out." The Sales Tax and Boutique Sales reports also gained a "Collected only" option, so you can report on money you received rather than money you billed.

Who this is for

If your families pay one monthly amount on autopay, a running balance is probably fine, and you can leave this off. If you take checks for specific things, run costume or competition fees alongside tuition, or have staff who get asked "is this paid?" every week, it's worth turning on.

What to ask any billing system