Accounts Receivable Aging explained

AR Aging is the report that prevents your collection process from running on memory. Without it, the corporate account that hasn't paid in 110 days is invisible until your accountant flags it during the audit. With it, you see them at day 60 and act.

How aging works

Each unpaid (or partially-paid) invoice has an open balance and a due date. Today's date minus the due date = the age. The report buckets the open balance into:

• Current — due date hasn't passed. Money you'll get any day now.
• 1-30 days overdue — late but normal. A polite reminder usually clears it.
• 31-60 days — getting late. Active follow-up needed.
• 61-90 days — escalation territory. Phone calls, manager involvement.
• 90+ days — formal collection action. Don't let invoices linger here without a plan.

Reading the summary

Reports → Accounts Receivable Aging. The summary table shows each customer with their balance broken across the five buckets and a total. Sort by 90+ desc to surface the worst offenders. The total row at the bottom is your headline AR — the total amount of money other people owe you right now.

Drill down

Click a customer to see each unpaid invoice with its issue date, due date, original amount, paid amount, open balance, and age. This is your action list — call them with specific invoice numbers, not vague "we think you owe us something".

Healthy AR mix

There's no universal target, but most healthy hospitality properties have:

• 60-80% in Current — most invoices are within their terms.
• 10-20% in 1-30 — normal slow-payers.
• Less than 10% combined in 31+ — anything more means systemic collection problems.
• Single-digit percentage in 90+ — and ideally none, with everything older either resolved or written off.

Practical workflow

1. Run weekly during high-volume seasons; monthly otherwise.
2. Sort by 90+, then 61-90 — work the worst first.
3. For each problem account, drill into the customer, list specific invoices, contact them with the list.
4. Record the conversation in the customer's notes so the next person picking it up knows the history.
5. After payment, the invoice's status flips to PAID and it disappears from the AR. Re-run the report to confirm the balance dropped.