Solution · Finance
Deposit Tracking for Couture Ateliers
Couture runs on deposits — and deposits are exactly what a notebook loses track of. Bomble records what each client has paid against the price, keeps the outstanding balance live, and gives you a payment reminder with the figure built in.
Updated 19 June 2026
The short answer
Deposit tracking means knowing, at any moment, how much each client has paid toward their order and how much is still owed — without doing arithmetic in your head. Ateliers usually take a deposit up front and collect the balance before delivery, but in a notebook or spreadsheet those figures drift and balances slip past handover. Bomble records the payment kind (None, Deposit or Full) and deposit paid against the price, recalculates the outstanding balance live, and sends a payment-reminder message with the balance included so collecting what is owed is a click, not a calculation.
The problem: chasing who paid what
Most ateliers work the same way: a deposit secures the order, the balance is due before the gown leaves. It is simple on paper and chaos in practice once you have dozens of orders at different stages of payment. Who paid a deposit? How much? Was it half or a third? Has the balance cleared, or did the gown go out on a promise?
When those answers live in a notebook margin or a spreadsheet cell that never recalculates, money slips through the gap. A balance that was never collected before delivery is the hardest money in the business to recover — the client has the dress and no longer has a reason to call you back. Every order where you are unsure what is owed is either an awkward conversation or quiet lost revenue, and reconstructing it means scrolling back through messages to find the figure.
- Deposits recorded inconsistently — half, a third, a round number — with no running total.
- Balances that slip past delivery, the hardest money in the business to recover.
- Spreadsheet cells that store a number but never recalculate what is still owed.
- Hunting back through messages to remember what a client has actually paid.
The fix: deposit paid against price, balance live
In Bomble every order carries its price total and a payment kind — None, Deposit or Full — so the payment shape of the order is explicit, not implied. As money comes in you log each payment with its amount, method (cash, card, bank, PayPal or other), a note and a date, and Bomble keeps a running collected total against the price.
From those two numbers the outstanding balance is recalculated live: change a deposit and the balance updates with it. You can edit deposits inline and the balance recalculates on the spot, delete a payment that was recorded in error, and read everything in clean euro formatting. The order always tells you the truth about what has been paid and what remains.
- Payment kind per order: None, Deposit or Full.
- Price total with deposit-paid tracking and a running collected total.
- Outstanding balance recalculated live as payments are logged or edited.
- Payments recorded with amount, method (cash/card/bank/PayPal/other), note and date.
- Inline deposit editing with instant balance recalculation; delete payments; euro formatting.
See it across the house, then collect it
Per-order figures only help if you can also see them across every order at once. The finance dashboard rolls them up into the KPIs that matter: booked revenue, collected, outstanding balance, collected this month, and six-month payment bars. The main dashboard keeps balance owed in front of you, and you can filter orders by payment status and payment kind to find exactly who still owes you.
Then you close the loop without leaving the order. Bomble's client messaging includes a payment-reminder template that carries the balance, sent by email (via Resend when configured) or as a WhatsApp deep link. Collecting what is owed becomes a single click with the figure already filled in, instead of a calculation followed by an awkward message you have to write from scratch.
- Finance dashboard KPIs: booked revenue, collected, outstanding balance, collected this month, 6-month bars.
- Balance owed surfaced on the main dashboard at a glance.
- Filter orders by payment status and payment kind to find exactly who owes.
- Payment-reminder message with the balance built in, by email or WhatsApp deep link.
- Top-clients-by-collected-revenue and payments-timeline reports with PDF export.
With Bomble
What you get for deposit tracking
- Payment kind per order — None, Deposit or Full — making the payment shape explicit.
- Deposit-paid tracked against the price with a running collected total.
- Outstanding balance recalculated live as you log or edit payments.
- Payments logged with amount, method (cash, card, bank, PayPal, other), note and date.
- Finance dashboard: booked revenue, collected, outstanding balance, collected this month and 6-month bars.
- Filter orders by payment status and payment kind to find exactly who still owes.
- Payment-reminder message with the balance built in, sent by email or WhatsApp deep link.
Frequently asked questions
- How does Bomble track deposits and balances?
- Each order carries a price total, a payment kind (None, Deposit or Full) and deposit-paid tracking. As you log payments, Bomble keeps a running collected total and recalculates the outstanding balance live, so each order always shows what has been paid and what remains.
- Can I edit a deposit and have the balance update?
- Yes. You can edit deposits inline and the outstanding balance recalculates on the spot. You can also log individual payments, choose the method, add a note and date, and delete a payment recorded in error.
- How do I see who still owes me money?
- The finance dashboard shows booked revenue, collected, outstanding balance and collected this month, and the main dashboard keeps balance owed in view. You can also filter orders by payment status and payment kind to pull up exactly who has an open balance.
- Can Bomble send a payment reminder with the amount owed?
- Yes. Client messaging includes a payment-reminder template that carries the balance, sent by email (via Resend when configured) or as a WhatsApp deep link — so the figure is already in the message and collecting is a single click.
- What payment methods can I record?
- Each payment can be recorded as cash, card, bank, PayPal or other, with an amount, note and date. Amounts are shown in euro formatting and roll up into the order's collected total and the finance dashboard.
- Can I see payments across the whole atelier over time?
- Yes. The finance dashboard includes six-month payment bars, and reports cover the payments timeline and top clients by collected revenue, each with a date-range picker and PDF export.
Keep exploring
Order Tracking for Couture Ateliers
When you have twenty gowns open at once, "where is that order?" should never need a phone call to the workroom. Bomble follows each order through your own stages and surfaces what is overdue, due soon, or in for a fitting today.
Client Measurements for Couture Ateliers
A client's body is the single most reused piece of data in your atelier — and the most likely to be lost in a notebook. Bomble holds 22 measurements per client, grouped by anatomy, ready to pull onto every order.
See Exactly Which Stage Every Gown Is At
When you cannot say, off the top of your head, whether a gown is being cut, sewn, fitted or finished, the atelier is running on memory. Bomble turns that memory into a pipeline the whole floor can read.
Never Run Out of Fabric Mid-Gown Again
Two fabric problems quietly drain an atelier: running short of a cloth halfway through a gown, and shelves of stock you forgot you bought. Bomble tracks every meter so neither one happens by surprise.
Guide: Stop losing orders in spreadsheets
Always know who paid what — and collect the rest.
Bomble was built inside a working couture atelier to keep deposits, balances and reminders in one place. Free 3-day trial, no card required.