Ageing reports

Receivables ageing

What each customer owes, grouped by age: current, 1 to 30 days, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, and over 90.

The buckets are based on the age of the originating document, which is what ageing means. A 90 day old invoice that was partly paid last week is still 90 days old.

Payables ageing

The same for what you owe suppliers. Use it to plan payments and to spot a supplier who has been waiting longer than you realised.

Read from the ledger

Ageing is built from the ledger entries themselves, not by scanning invoices. Two consequences matter:

Unapplied credit notes are netted. A customer with a 100,000 invoice and a 30,000 unused credit note is shown as owing 70,000, because that is what they owe. A report built from invoice balances alone cannot see the credit note, and will chase a customer for money they do not owe.

Ageing always agrees with your balance sheet. The receivables total on the ageing report and the receivables figure on the balance sheet are the same number from the same source. When those two disagree in an accounting system, it is usually because they were calculated two different ways.

Filters

Filter by location and by reporting tag, and run as at any date. Running it as at a past date shows what was outstanding then, which is what an auditor asks for.

Customer advances and retainers

Money held on account, whether from a retainer invoice or an overpayment, is not a negative receivable. It is a liability until it is drawn against an invoice, and it appears on its own report rather than reducing your ageing.

This keeps two different facts separate: what customers owe you, and what you owe customers in work not yet delivered.