Start at the right-hand end. Your oldest column holds the money genuinely at risk, your middle columns hold the invoices worth working today, and your newest overdue column is mostly admin that'll resolve itself. First, check whether your report ages invoices from the due date or the invoice date.
In this article
The short version
- The columns are usually current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and 90 plus days, aged from the due date in most systems and from the invoice date in some.
- Among late customer-initiated payments in Adfin's book the mean delay is 28.4 days against a median of 8, and 7.1% run past 90 days (Adfin platform data, 20,533 late payments out of 59,777 over 26 months).
- So a single average across your ledger doesn't describe your invoices, because the tail carries it.
- Read direct debit invoices separately, because Bacs settles after the due date by design and that isn't lateness.
- Xero gives you the Aged Receivables Summary report, and a per-customer average days to payment on each contact's Activity tab.
What the columns hold
An aged debtor report, also called aged receivables, lists every unpaid invoice by customer and sorts the balances into age bands. Most UK systems give you five.
| Column | What it holds | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Current | invoices not yet due | your pipeline, and worth checking only for size and concentration |
| 1 to 30 days | recently overdue | mostly admin, plus every direct debit collection in flight |
| 31 to 60 days | a missed cycle | somebody has skipped a payment run, so a person needs to ask |
| 61 to 90 days | a problem you haven't resolved | escalation, and a decision about further work |
| 90 plus days | money at risk | recovery, interest, or a write-off decision |
A summary report gives one row per customer and a detail report one row per invoice, so a summary flatters the customer holding four small balances.
How the ageing is worked out
Your report takes an as-at date, almost always today, and measures each unpaid balance against a reference date. Four things about that arithmetic matter before you read a column.
- Due date or invoice date. Ageing from the due date puts an invoice on 30 day terms into your 1 to 30 column a month later than ageing from the invoice date does. Both conventions exist, sometimes as an option on the same report, so check yours first.
- Part payments age with the original invoice. Pay £900 of £1,000 and the remaining £100 keeps the original due date, so a trivial remainder can read as a serious old debt.
- Credit notes and unallocated receipts distort both ends. Cash you've received but haven't matched leaves that invoice ageing while the money is already in your bank, and an unapplied credit note can push a customer negative in one column while a real balance ages in another.
- The as-at date moves everything. A report run on the 2nd and one run on the 28th describe different points in your customers' payment runs, so compare on a fixed day each month.
What the buckets hide
A bucket answers whether an invoice is overdue and never how far. Two invoices in your 1 to 30 column can be one day and 29 days late, and two in your 90 plus column can be three months and three years old.
The scale of that compression shows up in Adfin's own payment data. Among late customer-initiated payments the mean delay is 28.4 days and the median is 8 (Adfin platform data, 20,533 late payments). Nearly half arrive within a week of the due date, 27.3% within three days, and 14.1% are exactly one day late.
Then 7.1% run past 90 days, with a 99th percentile of 321 days. Those few invoices pull the mean to three and a half times the median, so an average days-late figure describes your worst debtors and almost nobody else. If you want one number it's the median.
That cuts both ways on your report. Most of your 1 to 30 column will settle without you doing much and your 90 plus column is where the value is, so one total overdue figure won't tell you much. Your ageing profile is more useful than your ageing total, and the credit control metrics worth tracking covers what to hold alongside it.
One caution on turning this into days. An overdue flag is a yes or no, so converting it into days late produces a figure your data can't support. Work days late out from the due date and the date the money arrived.
Why a direct debit book makes the first column look worse
If you collect by direct debit, your 1 to 30 column contains every collection currently moving through Bacs, and none of those are late in any meaningful sense.
The cycle explains it. On Adfin's book a collection is submitted a median of two days before the due date and settles a median of five days later, so it arrives about three days after the due date when everything's gone correctly. Only 0.20% of direct debit collections read as on time against the due date (Adfin platform data, 299,504 paid direct debit requests), which describes the Bacs calendar and nothing about your customers.
Two rules follow. Read direct debit invoices as their own population, by filtering them out or by treating anything under about a week overdue on a mandate as in flight. And don't act on a days-late average that blends direct debit with invoices your customers pay themselves, because direct debit dominates the count in most books that use it, so the blended number measures settlement timing. Why direct debit payments look late when they are not has the timings.
What to do with each column
- Current. Check concentration instead of chasing. One customer holding a quarter of your pipeline is a risk your report shows early, and a large invoice due next week is worth confirming as approved now.
- 1 to 30 days. Automated reminders and nothing else. Given how many late payments resolve inside a week, phoning on day three spends your time on invoices that were arriving anyway.
- 31 to 60 days. Your person adds most here. A payment run has been missed or an invoice hasn't been approved, and one call finds out which.
- 61 to 90 days. Escalate on the schedule you wrote down and decide about further work, in the order set out in recovering overdue debt.
- 90 plus days. Decide instead of drifting: interest and compensation, a letter before action, an agency, or a write-off. When to stop chasing covers that judgement.
Your oldest column tends to fill up with invoices nobody held a mandate for. In Adfin's book, invoices raised where a mandate already existed were 97.0% paid with 1.3% still unresolved six or more months later, against 90.3% and 5.4% where there wasn't one (Adfin platform data, 152,689 requests created in the seven months to 31 January 2026). Four times as much stuck money, though a client who agrees to a mandate may well have been paying you anyway.
The two things Xero gives you
Xero's Aged Receivables Summary report gives you the position and does the ageing for you.
Alongside it, each contact record carries an Activity tab showing that customer's invoice history and their average days to payment. Those answer different questions. Your report says where your money's stuck today, and the contact record says whether this client has always been slow or has only just started. Read them together and you can set rules per client, as in different chasing rules for different clients.
Common questions
What is an aged debtor report? A list of everything your customers owe you, grouped by customer and sorted into age bands. It's the same thing as an aged receivables report, and it tells you where your unpaid money's sitting today.
What do the columns on an aged debtor report mean? Usually current for invoices not yet due, then 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and 90 plus days overdue. Read 1 to 30 as admin, 31 to 90 as the columns needing a person, and 90 plus as the money genuinely at risk.
Is an aged debtor report based on the invoice date or the due date? Both conventions exist and it's sometimes an option on the report itself. Ageing from the due date is more useful for credit control, because ageing from the invoice date puts a 30 day invoice into your first overdue column a month early, when it isn't overdue at all.
Why do direct debit invoices show as overdue on my aged debtor report? Because Bacs settles after the due date by design. A collection submitted a couple of days before the due date lands around three days after it, so only 0.20% of direct debit collections on Adfin's book read as on time. Those invoices are in flight.
What is a good aged debtor profile? There isn't a universal benchmark, since terms and customer mix differ too much for one to mean much. Watch your own shape over months, and look for a falling share of value in your 61 plus columns.
Should I track average days late from my aged debtor report? Be careful with it. An overdue flag is a yes or no, so days late has to come from the due date and the payment date instead. And in Adfin's data the mean delay among late payments is 28.4 days against a median of 8, so an average alone describes your worst debtors.
This article explains how to read a standard aged debtor report and is not legal or financial advice. The lateness figures cover customer-initiated payments on Adfin's own platform and exclude direct debit, since Bacs settles after the due date by design. Last updated August 2026.
