An accounts receivable aging report lists unpaid customer balances grouped by how long they have been outstanding. The usual columns are current (not yet due), 1–30 days past due, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90. Each row is a customer and each column adds up across the business. The report shows where money is stuck and who to contact first. The older a balance gets, the harder it usually is to collect. On a payment plan, only installments whose due date has passed should count as past due. Future installments belong in current.
What is an AR aging report?
It is a table of everything customers owe you, split by age. Age is counted from each invoice's due date, or in some reports from the invoice date. Check which one your software uses, because the same invoice can land in different buckets.
What are the standard aging buckets?
Most accounting software uses 30-day buckets:
- Current: not yet due
- 1–30 days past due
- 31–60 days past due
- 61–90 days past due
- Over 90 days past due
No rule fixes these widths. You can set shorter buckets if your terms are short.
How do you read an aging report? A worked example
Here is a summary for a business with many customers on payment plans.
| Bucket | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Current | $412,000 | 87.8% |
| 1–30 days | $38,500 | 8.2% |
| 31–60 days | $12,200 | 2.6% |
| 61–90 days | $4,100 | 0.9% |
| Over 90 days | $2,600 | 0.6% |
| Total | $469,400 | 100% |
More than 30 days past due is $12,200 + $4,100 + $2,600 = $18,900. That is about 4.0% of the $469,400 total.
What to take from it:
- Most of the total is current. On payment plans that is normal, because future installments are owed but not due.
- The 1–30 bucket is where a reminder works best. Many of these are a single missed payment.
- The over-90 bucket needs a decision. Keep collecting, set up a new arrangement, pass it to a collection agency or write it off as a bad debt.
How should a payment plan appear on an aging report?
Count each installment by its own due date. Take a $14,800 plan with a $1,500 deposit and twelve payments of $1,108.33 (the last is $1,108.37). If the customer missed one payment 20 days ago, the report should show $1,108.33 in 1–30 days. The remaining future installments stay in current.
If your books carry the whole plan as one invoice dated at sign-up, the full balance can age as if it were all late. That makes the report look worse than it is. Splitting the plan into per-installment invoices or due dates fixes it.
How often should you run an aging report?
Run it at least once a month, at month end, so you can compare one month to the next. Teams that collect many installments often check the 1–30 bucket weekly. A month-to-month view shows the trend. If the over-90 bucket keeps growing, the cause is usually upstream: unclear terms, cards that expire, or no payment reminders.
What's the difference between aging and DSO?
Aging shows where the open balance sits. Days sales outstanding turns the whole AR balance into one average. Use aging to decide who to contact. Use DSO to track the trend.
The bucket arithmetic above is a worked example and needs no outside source. For the accounting background:
Every figure on this page was checked against these sources on Oct 6, 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.