Accounts payable aging
An accounts payable aging is a report that groups unpaid supplier bills by age, usually current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days past the bill date or due date.
It is the mirror of the accounts receivable aging: instead of who owes you, it shows who you owe. Read alongside your cash balance and AR, it tells you which payments are due soon, which are already late and where a dispute or a missing credit might be hiding.
Example
The aging shows $18,000 current, $6,500 at 1 to 30 days and $2,200 over 60 days to one supplier. That old balance turns out to be a disputed delivery. Resolving it removes a real obstacle to reconciling the supplier statement.
Common mistake
Paying only when suppliers chase, without reviewing the aging. That order guarantees late fees, strained terms and the occasional double payment when a chased invoice gets paid twice.
How to use it
Review the AP aging weekly or at least monthly. Pay from the aging, not from incoming emails, reconcile supplier statements to it, and investigate anything old, because old balances are usually disputes, errors or credits waiting to be found.
Why the aging matters for cash
Profit and cash are different, and the AP aging is half of that difference. A profitable month can still end in a cash crunch if a cluster of large bills comes due at once. Reviewing the aging by due date lets you sequence payments deliberately, ask for terms before you are late, and avoid the supplier who quietly stops shipping because their balance drifted past 60 days.
Aging by bill date or due date
Reports can age from the bill date or the due date. Due-date aging is the more useful view for managing payments, because it shows what is actually late rather than what was issued a while ago. Whichever you use, be consistent so trends mean something month to month.
Reconciling supplier statements
Once a month, match each major supplier's statement to your AP. Every difference has a cause: a bill never entered, a payment they did not apply, a credit memo you never received, or a genuine dispute. A payables balance that matches supplier statements is one of the quiet signs of clean books.
AP aging and job costing
For contractors and other project businesses, supplier bills carry job and cost-code tags. The aging then does double duty: it shows what you owe and confirms that job costs are complete for the period. An unentered supplier invoice understates job cost and overstates job profit at the same time.