Managing Receivables and Payables at a Money Exchange — Don't Let Debts Slip Away
In a money exchange, half your money is always in someone else's hands, or theirs is in yours. How to track debtors and creditors, close inter-dealer accounts, and drive forgotten receivables to zero.
In an ordinary business, receivables and payables are a sideline. In a money exchange, they are the heart of the operation. That's the nature of the business: money is constantly flowing between you and others — the customer's money sits with you (you owe him), or your money sits with a customer or counterpart (he owes you). At any given moment, a large share of your assets is not in the till but in these accounts.
And precisely because these accounts are numerous and constantly changing, a lost receivable is the most common way to lose money in this business — not theft, not a bad trade, but a debt nobody remembered to chase.
First, let's get two words straight
In an exchange's books, the meaning of debtor and creditor is simple:
- The customer's account is in credit = his money is with you, you owe him. (He is the creditor.)
- The customer's account is in debit = your money is with him, he owes you.
An important point: a single customer can be a debtor in one currency and a creditor in another. If he owes you 1,000 dollars but you owe him 50 million tomans, those two figures have nothing to do with each other and must never be netted together. (We explained why in the exchange general ledger: each currency gets its own book.)
Four kinds of "receivable" that must be tracked separately
Not all receivables are alike. Each carries its own risk and its own way of following up:
1. Customer account balance. The customer owes you (say, he took the currency and is meant to pay later). The simplest kind, but dangerous if it piles up.
2. Inter-dealer accounts with counterparts. With every exchange you deal with (your counterpart in Dubai, Istanbul, wherever) you keep a two-way account. This is usually the largest and riskiest, because the amounts are big and depend on the other side's creditworthiness.
3. Transfers in transit. Money you've received but that hasn't yet reached its destination — an open obligation that counts as a receivable or payable until it settles.
4. Cheques and receivable instruments. A cheque you've taken but haven't yet collected. Until it clears, it's a contingent receivable.
Mixing these four together means you'll never have a clear picture of "how much am I owed, and from where."
The inter-dealer account: where most disputes happen
If you take only one thing from this article, let it be this: the balance of the inter-dealer account with each counterpart must be clear at every moment.
Why? Because this account is two-way and packed with transactions — you send a transfer for him, he sends one for you; you fall into debit, then into credit. If both sides aren't recorded accurately and at the same time, the balances drift apart. And the day you sit down to settle, your figure won't match his — and now you're comparing months of transactions line by line.
Most disputes between exchangers aren't born of bad faith; they're born of a messy inter-dealer account. The fix: record every transaction with a counterpart the moment it happens, and reconcile the balance with him periodically (not just at settlement time).
Why do receivables get lost?
A lost receivable is usually the product of a single moment: the customer takes the currency, says "I'll pay tomorrow," you don't jot it down in the rush, and tomorrow it's forgotten. Three weeks later neither of you remembers.
The common pattern behind every lost receivable: at the moment it was created, it was never recorded anywhere. So the main defense is to make recording the receivable part of the transaction itself, not a separate task left to memory.
گزارش سنی بدهکاران در نکستو — طلبها بر اساس مدت
The key tool: the aging report
To keep receivables from slipping away, one tool is vital: the aging report on receivables. This report groups debtors by how long they've been in debt:
| Bucket | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Fresh (0–7 days) | Normal, part of the natural flow of business |
| 8–30 days | Needs follow-up |
| 31–90 days | Warning — likely a problem |
| Over 90 days | Serious risk — possible write-off |
The power of this report is that it highlights time, not just the amount. A receivable that has sat for three months, regardless of its size, is an alarm bell — either it was forgotten, or the customer has a problem. Either way, you need to know today.
Collecting without wrecking the relationship
Chasing a receivable carries a tension: you want your money, but you don't want to offend a good customer. A few practical principles:
- Sooner, softer. A reminder on day seven is far easier than a hard demand on day ninety. The later you leave it, the harsher the tone inevitably becomes.
- With a document, not with memory. "You took 500 dollars on 24 June, here's the statement" is far stronger and less fraught than "I think you owe me something."
- A transparent statement. A customer who sees an accurate, understandable statement usually pays without argument. It's ambiguity that breeds tension.
- Match the tone to the track record. A reliable payer gets a soft reminder; a chronic late payer gets firmer follow-up.
The role of software
Managing receivables and payables is inherently a tracking problem, and tracking is a machine's job, not memory's. A few things you should expect from your system:
- A live balance for every customer and counterpart, in every currency. No manual adding-up.
- An automatic aging report. So old receivables surface on their own instead of you having to go hunting for them.
- A one-click statement. For any customer, at any moment — useful both for follow-up and for transparency with the customer.
- A clear two-way inter-dealer account with every counterpart.
In Nexto, every account's balance is built from its documents (not by hand), the debtors report and the aging report are automatic, and any customer's statement can be pulled in the moment and even sent to him over WhatsApp — so that following up is a natural part of the work, not a separate project.
Summary
In a money exchange, a large share of your assets is always in someone else's hands — and a lost receivable is the most common way to lose money. Track the four kinds of receivable separately, keep the inter-dealer account clear at all times, use the aging report to spot old receivables, and follow up early and with a document. A receivable recorded at the moment it's created never gets lost.
Want to see how the debtors report and the customer statement work in practice? Build a dedicated demo and follow the balances of a few customers.
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