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What Is an Aged Debtors Report?

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedOct 20202 min read

Some of the terminology involved in accounting can be confusing. The term “debtor” is simple enough – it refers to anyone who owes your business money. But what about “aged debtors report”? If you’ve heard the aforementioned term and can’t quite figure out what it means or what its relevance is to your business, we’re here to help. Learn more about the importance of aged debtors reports with our comprehensive guide, kicking off with our aged debt definition.

Understanding aged debtors reports

Before we get onto the meaning of aged debtors reports, it’s essential to understand the definition of aged debt. So, what is aged debt? Essentially, aged debt is a measurement of the total amount of money owed to your business by customers. Consequently, an aged debtors report is a complete list of all the invoices that haven’t yet been paid, minus any credit notes that have been issued to your customers, and not yet refunded.

Generally speaking, aged debtors reports are sorted by customer, product type, and date. Furthermore, if you’re registered for VAT, the report should show invoices/credit notes inclusive of VAT, since that’s the full amount of money that you can expect to receive. To make things easier, your aged debtors report should be divided into different periods, i.e., invoices due to be paid in 30 days, in 30 to 60 days, in 60 to 90 days, and so on.

Why is an aged debtors report important?

Aged debtors reports are essential because they provide an excellent insight into your business’s financial health. You can use the data contained within the report to understand how quickly, on average, your customers make a payment, the effectiveness of any changes to your accounts receivable/debtor management process, the number of bad debtors (i.e., customers who are unlikely to ever make payment), and whether any particular types of customers are more likely to be late payers.

Aged debtors report template

To get a better sense of how these sorts of reports work, it may help see an aged debtors report example. Below, you’ll find a simple aged debtors report template:

	Current	1-30 days	31-60 days	61-90 days	>90 days	Total
Company A	£1000	£1400	£1000	-	-	£3400
Company B	£500	£300	-	£400	-	£1200
Company C	£800	£700	-	£200	£1000	£2700
Total	£2300	£2400	£1000	£600	£1000	£7300

It’s worth remembering that this aged debtors report example is very straightforward, so if you’re looking for a template to use for your own business, it’s probably a good idea to search online for a more comprehensive document. There is a broad range of aged debtors report templates to choose from, so you should be able to find one that’s well suited to your business.

Improving your debt management process

Once you’ve compiled an aged debtors report, you may wish to take a more proactive approach to the amount of debt on your company’s balance sheet. After all, that capital could be used for a wide range of initiatives, including funding new projects and paying out dividends. Think about prioritising your largest debts and putting more effort into chasing up chronically late payers. You should also consider automating your accounts receivable process to reduce the legwork required by your accounting team. To stop aged debt from becoming such a significant problem, enforcing stricter payment terms and tightening up your credit policy could also be an effective ploy.

We can help

GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.