In this paper, we clarified the relationship between continued fractions, determinants, and identities, making it easier to apply these methods systematically in other settings. In particular, we studied finite continued fractions from the perspective of incomplete numbers (restricted or associated numbers) and also explored their relationships with determinant representations and identities. Most of the new results in this paper concern $q$-analogues of special numbers, whereas the classical cases mainly serve to illustrate and unify the general framework. The framework developed here is flexible and allows one to derive continued fractions, determinant formulas, and coefficient identities in a uniform way for several new $q$-families, and it is expected to be applicable to other families of special numbers, as well.