Arjun's Membership Due List

See each morning which alumnus to remind about paying this month's membership fee, and send that reminder in one tap.

Who this is for

Arjun Rane is fifty-one, a purchase manager at a pump factory in Nashik, and the unpaid treasurer of his polytechnic's alumni association. Two hundred and sixty members, 150 rupees a month, one committee meeting every quarter. The moment is 7:40 in the morning, tea going cold, twenty minutes before he leaves for work. He has time to send four messages. He does not have time to work out who should get them.

How the job is done today

There is a spreadsheet he inherited from the treasurer before him, with a column for every month since 2019 and ticks put in by three different people in three different ways. Payments arrive as UPI screenshots on his personal WhatsApp, sometimes at eleven at night, and he means to enter them on Sunday. In the 260-member group he posts a general reminder that everybody scrolls past. So he chases the six people he happens to remember, and the fellow who quietly stopped paying in March is noticed in September.

The screens, in order

1. This morning's list — The page he opens first, showing only the handful of members who owe money and have not heard from him in the last week, oldest pending first.
2. Send the reminder — Opens WhatsApp on his own phone with the message already written out, so the member gets it from Arjun's number and not from a stranger.
3. Record a payment — Lets him tap a name, put in the amount and the month it covers, and be done before the screenshot has finished loading.
4. Everyone — The full list of members with what each one owes, for the ten minutes before a committee meeting rather than the ten seconds in the morning.
5. One member — Shows a single alumnus's payment history and every reminder he has been sent, so nobody can say he was never asked.
6. Add a member — For the new joiner from the batch WhatsApp group, with name, batch year, phone number and what he has agreed to pay.

What it keeps track of

• Members — name, batch year, phone number, what he pays each month, whether he is active or has asked to be left alone
• Payments — who paid, how much, which month it covers, the day it came in, and whether it came by UPI, cash or bank transfer
• Reminders — who was reminded, which day, which pending months it was about, and whether he replied
• Committee logins — the two or three people allowed in, and which of them recorded each payment

The one decision that matters

Should the site send the WhatsApp reminders by itself every morning, or should it hand Arjun a message he taps to send from his own number? Sending automatically sounds like less work, and it is the wrong choice. A dues message from an unfamiliar number is treated as spam by the very people who are already avoiding the subject, and it can go out to a man who paid last night before Arjun has entered it. A message from Arjun gets a reply, sometimes an apology, sometimes the money by lunchtime. Keep the choosing automatic and the sending human. The ten seconds is for reading four names and tapping four times.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out collecting the money inside the site. Members already pay by UPI to the association's own ID and that part is not broken. Taking payments would bring in settlement, refunds, receipts and matching entries against a bank statement, which is a month of work that does not shorten Arjun's morning by a single second. Also leave out member logins. Two hundred and sixty people do not want an account. They want to be asked once, politely, by a person they know.

How you would know it worked

In September, nobody appears on the pending list still owing for April. The names Arjun reads out at the quarterly committee meeting are all people who heard from him personally within the month, and not one of them is surprised to be there.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I am the treasurer of our polytechnic alumni association in Nashik and about 260 members each pay 150 rupees a month. I want a small website that only I and two other committee members can open, and when I open it in the morning the first thing on the screen is a short list of who has not paid this month and who I have not already reminded in the last seven days, oldest pending first. Next to each name a button that opens WhatsApp on my phone with the message already typed, with his name, the months pending and the total. When someone sends me a UPI screenshot I want to tap his name and enter the amount and which month it was for in two taps. Keep a record of every reminder so I do not message the same man twice in a week, let me mark some members as leave alone for now, and give me one page showing everyone and what they owe for the committee meeting.