What is an AR aging report?

An accounts receivable aging report, usually just called the aging report, groups every unpaid invoice by how many days it is past due. The standard buckets are current, 1-30 days past due, 31-60, 61-90, and 90+. The report is the single most useful diagnostic view for AR health, because it shows at a glance where risk is concentrated and how fast it is moving.

The shape of the report matters more than the total. A business with most of its receivables in the current bucket and a light tail past 60 days is in good shape. A business where the 61-90 and 90+ buckets are growing month over month is heading into a collection problem, regardless of what the top-line revenue looks like.

The aging report is also the input into almost every downstream AR decision: which invoices to prioritize for follow-up this week, which customers to put on credit hold, which balances to propose a payment plan for, and eventually which ones to charge off as bad debt. Reading it weekly instead of monthly is one of the highest-leverage changes a small business can make to its cash flow.