Aged debtors and aged creditors in Xero: the settings that change the numbers

Ask two bookkeepers to run “aged debtors” for the same Xero organisation and you can get two different answers. Both can be right. The difference is almost always in the settings: which date invoices are aged from, which date the report is run as at, and whether it is the summary or the detail.

This guide covers Xero’s Aged Receivables and Aged Payables reports, the settings that matter, and how to send them to the people who need them. Xero calls them receivables and payables; in the UK, Australia and New Zealand many people still say aged debtors and aged creditors. They are the same reports.

Menu names and options change between Xero releases, so check Xero Central’s articles for the current version of each report.

Summary or detail?

Xero has both versions of each report:

• Aged Receivables Summary shows the outstanding total for each customer, split into ageing columns. One line per customer.
• Aged Receivables Detail lists every outstanding invoice, credit note and overpayment behind those totals.
• Aged Payables Summary and Aged Payables Detail do the same for suppliers.

Which to send: the summary to directors and owners, who want to see who owes what and how late. The detail to whoever is doing the chasing, who needs invoice numbers and dates. Sending the detail to a director usually means it is not read.

Ageing by due date or by invoice date

This is the setting that causes most disagreements. Xero lets you age transactions:

• By due date: an invoice sits in the column for how far past its due date it is. An invoice raised yesterday on 30-day terms is “current”.
• By invoice date: an invoice sits in the column for how long ago it was raised, whatever its terms.

Ageing by due date answers “how late are customers paying?”, which is usually what directors mean. Ageing by invoice date answers “how long has this money been outstanding?”, which some lenders and auditors prefer because it does not depend on the terms you agreed.

Neither is wrong. Pick one, label it, and keep it the same every month. If you change basis, say so in the commentary, because the overdue figure can move a lot without anything changing in the business.

The as-at date

The report shows what was outstanding at a date. Two things to know:

• Running it as at month end gives a snapshot that matches your Balance Sheet for that date, which is what you want in a monthly pack.
• Running it today shows what is outstanding now, including payments received since month end. That is what you want for a Monday-morning chasing list.

If a director compares a month-end report with what they hear from the credit controller a week later, the difference is usually payments received in between. It helps to put the as-at date in the email or commentary.

Ageing periods

The ageing columns can be adjusted in the report settings, and Xero Central describes an option for whether the report date is included in the Current column. Many businesses use monthly buckets (Current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, over 90 days). Match the columns to your payment terms: if your standard terms are 14 days, a 1-to-30-day column hides the difference between “a few days late” and “nearly a month late”.

Before you trust the figures

Aged reports are only as good as the matching behind them.

1. Reconcile bank accounts first. A payment that has arrived but is not yet matched leaves the invoice showing as unpaid.
2. Apply credit notes and overpayments. Unallocated credits make customers look as though they owe more than they do, and they also appear in the detail report.
3. Clear old items. Very old small balances, often rounding or bank charges, clutter the over-90-days column. Write them off or allocate them properly; writing off a bad debt in Xero shows how, and the same steps apply to a large invoice that will never be paid.
4. Check foreign currency invoices if you trade in more than one currency; check how they are shown in your base currency.

What to do with the report

A useful habit is to agree in advance what each column triggers, for example: 1 to 30 days, a reminder; 31 to 60 days, a phone call; over 60 days, a director decides whether to pause supply. Then the report becomes a list of actions rather than a list of numbers.

To see what collecting the total would do for your cash, enter it in the free cash runway calculator: it shows how many weeks the cash lasts now, and how many more if customers pay. To see how long customers take to pay on average, and how much cash that ties up, use the debtor days calculator; for how long you take to pay suppliers, see how to calculate creditor days.

Xero’s built-in invoice reminders take care of chasing customers. The aged summary is for the people managing the business. For more on that split, see automating aged receivables reports to directors.

Customer statements are related but different. Xero offers activity statements (everything in a date range) and outstanding statements, and you can send them manually; the customer statements guide shows both for the same customer and when to send which. Automatic statement emails were still listed as “In discovery” on Xero’s product ideas forum in August 2026.

Common questions

Where is the aged debtors report in Xero? In the Reporting menu (Accounting › Reports in the older menu), as Aged Receivables Summary (one line per customer) or Aged Receivables Detail (every unpaid invoice). Aged creditors is Aged Payables Summary or Detail in the same list. If you use it often, mark it as a favourite so it sits at the top of the reports page.

What does the Current column mean? When the report ages by due date, Current is money owed on invoices that are not due yet. It is not late. The columns after it are the overdue part, which is the figure to chase. When the report ages by invoice date, there is no “not yet due”: every column is simply how long ago the invoice was raised.

Why does the aged receivables total not match Accounts Receivable on the Balance Sheet? Check the obvious things first: run both reports as at the same date, and run the Balance Sheet on the accrual basis (on the cash basis it has no money owed by customers at all). If they still differ, the usual causes are opening balances entered as a single conversion balance instead of the individual unpaid invoices, and foreign currency invoices that are valued at different rates in the two reports. Compare the Account Transactions report for Accounts Receivable with the aged detail to find the entries that are in one and not the other.

Why does an invoice the customer has paid still show as owing? Almost always because the payment has not been matched to the invoice. Either the bank line is not reconciled yet, or it was coded with Receive Money to a sales account instead of being matched to the invoice, which counts the sale twice and leaves the invoice open. Xero bank reconciliation shows how to find and fix it.

How often should I look at aged debtors? Weekly if customers owe you a meaningful amount, because an invoice that slips from 1 to 30 days into 31 to 60 is much harder to collect. A month-end report is fine for the board pack, but chasing works better from a list run today. Who owes me money in Xero shows a quick weekly routine.

What is the difference between aged debtors and debtor days? Aged debtors lists who owes what and how late. Debtor days turns the total into one number: how many days of sales are sitting unpaid. Use the aged report to decide whom to chase and the debtor days calculator to see whether customers are paying faster or slower over time.

Sending it regularly

Xero does not email aged reports on a schedule at the time of writing, so a weekly debtors summary means running and exporting it each time (see Xero report scheduling).

ReportPilot can send aged receivables and payables summaries weekly or monthly as PDF, Excel or CSV, usually alongside the list of unpaid invoices or unpaid bills. Be aware of how it works: it builds its aged summaries from outstanding invoices and bills, bucketed by due date into Current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days, as at the date the pack is generated. That makes it a good “who owes us what today” report. If you need ageing by invoice date, different buckets, or a historical as-at date, export Xero’s own report instead. There is a 14-day free trial with no card, then plans start at US$19 a month for one organisation, or US$49 for up to 15 clients.