Struggling to get paid

[Yippeeforme]

Any other teachers giving private lessons struggle to get paid on time? Or get people throwing heaps of money at you in one go and expecting you to just keep track for them, instead of cooperating with whatever payment schedule is on the contract you both signed in the first lesson day?
My bookkeeping is a mess with this nonsense.

Surely just settinf up an excel sheet with each persons name in a column, write the date of each lesson down each column, then highlight the cell with the date once paid?

So you would know instantly if a person is late, and if they pay enough for 10 lessons in advance, then you highlight 10 blank cells down the column, fill in the date each lesson and then give them a warning with the have 2 remaining.

If you keep on top of it it'll be easy to manage.

Many book keeping / excel sheets link up a diary. So you could colour co-ordinate all your students. Lucy is green. Sally is pink. Then when sally pays 2 weeks later, but also paying 5 weeks ahead, it will colour code your next 5 sally Tuesday lessons as green, so you'll be able to see easily when she's paid up until?

My daughters teacher requires a block of six lessons to be paid a minimum of 48 hours before the first lesson. An email arrives the day after lesson five to remind me that the next six needs to be paid for. She is not just term time so blocks of six work well.
She also very strict about cancellations/substitution lessons. Cancellation for holiday need to be done a week in advance to get a different lesson late cancellation you loose the lesson. She has vet clear terms and conditions so we all know where we are.

There are some straightforward online programmes ... Sage, Quickbooks, Accountz ... you have to pay for them, I think but they are clear and straightforward. I know it's not what you want to be doing but it's part of the game and will make your end of year accounts so much easier.