AR Aging Report Generator

What is an AR aging report and why does it matter?

An accounts receivable aging report takes your outstanding customer invoices and sorts them by how long they've been unpaid - Current (not yet due), 1–30 days past due, 31–60 days, 61–90 days, and 90+. That's it. Simple idea, but the clarity it gives a finance team is genuinely hard to replicate any other way. Most Australian businesses run this monthly; high-volume AR teams check it weekly, or even daily when cash flow's tight.

The aging report is your DSO in visual form. The longer invoices pile up in older buckets, the higher your Days Sales Outstanding and the harder your working capital position gets. For construction or manufacturing businesses with large contract values, one slow-paying customer sitting in the 60+ day bucket can create a real problem - especially if you've got supplier payments due on the other side of the ledger. Late payment from customers cascades quickly.

Where most teams go wrong is treating all overdue invoices the same way. A customer who's 10 days late probably just needs a reminder. Someone at 45 days needs a direct call, not another automated email. Past 60 days you're making harder decisions: put the account on hold, send a formal demand letter, and depending on the amount, consider whether the debt needs to be provisioned as doubtful under AASB 9. The aging buckets exist precisely to force that differentiation.

Worked example: electrical contractor monthly AR review

A Perth electrical contractor with AU$6M annual revenue reviews AR at the end of each month. The May report shows:

The State Government account (AU$85,500) has AU$28,500 in the 31-60 bucket. Government departments often pay slowly but reliably, so this might not warrant escalation beyond a polite reminder. Coastal Fitouts is the real concern: AU$40,500 with nothing in Current means they have stopped ordering but still owe for completed work. A direct call this week, followed by a formal collection letter if there is no response within 7 days. JM Property at 90+ days (AU$9,300) should be reviewed for bad debt provisioning if recovery efforts have been exhausted.

The business's DSO is 38 days. Without Coastal Fitouts' overdue balance, it would be 29 days. One slow payer is adding 9 days to the average collection cycle and tying up AU$40,500 in working capital.

How to use this generator

1. Enter your company name and report date at the top of the form.
2. Add each outstanding invoice: customer name, invoice number, invoice date, and amount owing. The tool auto-assigns each one to the right aging bucket based on how many days it's been outstanding.
3. Look at where debt is concentrated. If most of your overdue balance is in the 60+ day bucket, your collections process has a gap earlier in the cycle - the reminder at 30 days isn't working.
4. Download as PDF to share with your credit manager, CFO, or accountant as part of your monthly reporting.

Frequently asked questions

What escalation thresholds should I set?

There's no universally correct answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably selling something. Your thresholds should reflect your industry, your customer mix, and how much relationship risk you're willing to take on. A reasonable starting point for Australian trade businesses: automated reminder at 7 days overdue, a phone call at 14, a formal letter of demand at 30, account on hold at 45, and referral to a collection agency or solicitor somewhere between 60 and 90. For government or large corporate customers, most businesses extend those timelines - the relationship value is real. Just make sure that assumption gets reviewed when a government customer hits 90+ days, because goodwill doesn't pay suppliers.

How does overdue AR affect my tax position?

If you're on the accruals basis for GST - which most businesses with turnover above $2M are - you've already remitted GST on invoices you haven't collected yet. That's the part that stings. If a debt eventually becomes genuinely bad and you write it off, you can claim a bad debt adjustment on your BAS to recover that GST. The ATO's requirement is that you've taken reasonable steps to recover the debt and it's been formally written off in your accounts first. A documented AR aging report, showing that you were actively tracking and chasing the debt, is exactly the kind of evidence that supports that claim.

How often should I run an AR aging report?

Monthly at minimum. Weekly if you've got more than 20 or 30 active debtors, or if cash flow timing is a regular source of stress. The honest answer is that the frequency matters less than whether you actually act on it. A monthly report that gets filed without anyone making a collections call is just administrative overhead. Building a weekly AR review into your standing finance agenda - even 20 minutes - is one of the more effective things you can do to shrink debtor days without hiring anyone.