The accounts receivable aging report, read the way a collector reads it

Each row is a customer (or, in the detail version, a single invoice). Each column is a range of days past due. The amount in a cell is what is still outstanding, not what was originally invoiced — a partly paid invoice appears with its remaining balance.

The usual ranges are the ones below. Your accounting system may label them differently, but the idea is the same everywhere.

• Current — not yet due. Nothing to collect, but worth checking that the customer actually received the invoice.
• 1–30 days past due — the normal slippage zone: approvals, payment runs, a missing purchase order number.
• 31–60 days — something is usually in the way: a question, a dispute, a wrong contact.
• 61–90 days — the invoice needs an owner and a plan, not another automated reminder.
• Over 90 days — a decision for management: payment plan, stopping further deliveries, formal steps, or a write-off review with your accountant.

Age an invoice from its due date, not from its invoice date. An invoice with 60-day terms that was issued 45 days ago is current; aged by invoice date it would already look like a problem. Some reports offer both options — check which one yours uses before you act on it.

Count calendar days, in your own time zone, up to the date the data was exported. That last part matters most: an aging report is a snapshot. The older the snapshot, the more of its 'overdue' invoices have already been paid.

If you invoice in more than one currency, the report needs one total per currency. Adding euro and dollar balances into a single number produces a figure that no bank statement will ever confirm, and it hides which part of the book is actually moving.

Work the report from the oldest bucket back to the newest only when the older amounts are large; otherwise start with 1–30, where a short reminder still changes the outcome. The wording is ready: a reminder email for each aging bucket. A practical routine for a finance team:

• Current: confirm the invoice reached the right person and carries whatever the customer's accounts payable team needs (order number, cost center, correct legal entity).
• 1–30: one friendly reminder with the invoice number, due date and open amount, and an offer to resend the invoice.
• 31–60: a personal follow-up. Ask whether anything is blocking payment. This is where disputes and 'we already paid' replies surface — record them instead of reminding again.
• 61–90: hand the customer to a named person. Call, agree a payment date, and write the promise down so the next reminder waits for it.
• Over 90: decide deliberately. Your credit policy, not the reminder tool, determines what happens next.

• Working from an export that is several days old — payments received since then still show as overdue.
• Keeping disputed invoices in the normal reminder flow: the customer receives a payment request for an amount they are contesting.
• Reading the summary only. The detail view shows whether one large invoice or twenty small ones make up a bucket, and those need different work.
• Treating a customer's 'already paid' as settled before the payment shows up in your own books.