How to track custom orders without losing one

A creator's guide from My Customs

Why DM threads fail as a system

Every custom starts in a chat. A fan asks for something specific, you agree a price, maybe they pay a deposit, and all of it lives in a message thread — right up until that thread scrolls out of sight under a hundred newer conversations. The details didn't disappear, but for practical purposes they might as well have. If you sell more than a couple of customs a month, "I'll remember" stops being a plan.

The fix isn't complicated. It's a list — one place where every custom you've sold is written down the same way. The rest of this guide is what belongs on that list and how to keep it honest.

The seven things to record for every custom

Whatever tool you use — a notes app, a spreadsheet, or a dedicated tracker — these seven fields cover a custom completely:

• Who ordered it. The fan's name as you know them, on the platform where they asked.
• Where it was sold. OnlyFans, Fansly, ManyVids, Telegram — you'll want to deliver in the same place.
• Exactly what they asked for. Copy their words, don't summarize. Disputes come from paraphrasing.
• The price you agreed. One number, written down at the moment it's agreed.
• What's been paid so far. Deposits and tips count toward the total — track each one, not just "paid/unpaid."
• When it's due. Even a rough date. Undated work is the work that slips.
• A link back to the conversation. The single most useful field. When it's time to deliver, you're one click from the exact thread instead of scrolling for it.

The lifecycle: three stages are enough

A custom really only has three states, and your list should show them:

• Lead — someone's asking, nothing's agreed. Half of these evaporate; that's normal. Keep them separate so they don't clutter the real work.
• Active — price agreed, ideally deposit down. This is your to-do list, sorted by due date.
• Completed — delivered. Keep them; completed customs are your record of what sells and for how much.

More stages than that ("editing", "rendering", "awaiting approval") sound organized but mostly create filing work. Three stages, moved promptly, beat seven stages nobody updates.

Partial payments are the whole game

Customs are rarely paid once. A deposit up front, a tip midway, the rest on delivery — money arrives in pieces, and the question that matters is always "what's still owed on this one?" Track every payment as its own entry against the custom, with a date. The outstanding balance should be arithmetic your system does, not arithmetic you do at midnight. This is where spreadsheets start to creak — the formula's fine until a row gets sorted, and then it isn't.

Never missing a deadline

Two habits do most of the work. First, no custom goes on the Active list without a due date — if the fan doesn't care when, pick a date yourself; it's for you, not them. Second, look at the list sorted by due date at the start of each working day. Anything overdue should be visually loud. If your tool can nudge your phone with a daily summary, turn that on and let it do the remembering.

Pick a tool you'll actually keep up

The best tracking system is the one that's still accurate in month three. A notes app is instant but has no structure. A spreadsheet has structure but fights you on a phone — the full comparison is in tracker vs. spreadsheet, including a free column template if you go that route. A purpose-built tracker like My Customs is the middle path: structured like the spreadsheet, quick like the notes app, and it never touches your money.

New to the terminology? Start with what customs are.