How do you keep track of the days you worked and the wages you are owed as a day laborer?

Why do daily wages get muddled?

Someone who paints, moves furniture, works on building sites or in gardens often works for two or three different people in the same week. One pays cash that evening, another says "I'll pay you all on Friday", a third sends two weeks of money in two halves. By the end of the month it is hard to remember which days have been paid and which have not.

Partial payments are where money gets lost. If you receive 3,000 for six days of work and do not write down which days it covered, you have no number to point to when you talk to the employer two weeks later. Writing every day and every payment on its own line settles that conversation before it starts.

What should the record hold?

For each working day: the date, the employer, the daily wage and a few words about the job. For each payment: the date, the amount and where the money went, your wallet or a bank account. Keep employers apart; settling one employer's days with another employer's payment breaks the count.

Money you receive before you work is also a payment. If what you have received is more than the days you have worked add up to, the difference is an advance and comes off the wages for the following days.

Step by step: entering daily wages in Wiozen Ledger

• On the People page, add the employer with New person. A name is enough; phone and IBAN are optional.
• In the Daily wages section on that person's page, pick the date, enter the wage under Daily wage, add a short note such as painting or moving under Job, and press I worked. The next time, the wage field opens with the last wage you entered.
• If you were paid that evening, tick I got paid today and choose the account the money went into. The day is saved as paid.
• When you receive a lump sum or part of what you are owed, enter it under Payment received in the same section, choose the account and press I received a payment.

Which days does a payment settle?

A payment entered together with a day settles that day. Payments you enter on their own are spread over the unpaid days in order, oldest first. Say you worked five days at 1,200 a day and received 3,000. The first two days are fully paid and 600 goes to the third. The person's page says "You are owed 3,000", and in the list of days the ones with no money at all are marked unpaid and the half paid one is marked partial.

If you have received more than the days add up to, the page says you took an advance, and the difference is used up by the next days you enter. Once everything is paid, the status reads All settled.

Where do your earnings show up?

Every payment goes into the account you chose as an income record in the Daily wages category. A day you worked but were not paid for is not income yet; it is money owed to you. So the monthly report counts only the money you actually received as income, while unpaid days sit in your net worth as a receivable.

The account a payment goes into must be in the same currency as the wage. If you are paid in dollars or euros, open an account in that currency and enter the days in it too.

Reminders for unpaid days

When an employer has an unpaid day older than 14 days, the dashboard shows a reminder titled with the person's name and "unpaid daily wages". Under it you see the number of days, the total and how long ago the oldest one was, for example "3 days · 3,600 · oldest 20 days ago". Tapping it opens that person's page.

The reminder appears only on your dashboard. Wiozen Ledger does not message the employer, and they do not need to use the app.

A day entered by mistake

If you entered a day with the wrong date or wage, delete it and enter the right one. Deleting a day that was entered with I got paid today also deletes its payment and the income record in the account, so the balance is not counted twice. A payment you entered on its own can be deleted from its own row as well, which removes its income record too.

Which plan includes this?

Pro includes people and daily wage tracking. Every new account gets 14 days of Pro without a card; after that Pro is $39.99 a year or $6.99 a month. The free plan has 1 account and 30 records a month. Details are on the pricing page.