The A/P Aging Summary in QuickBooks Online

The Accounts Payable Aging Summary is a picture of what your business owes its vendors, sorted by how long each unpaid bill has been outstanding. It lists one row per vendor and spreads that vendor's open balance across columns for how overdue it is: current, 1-30 days, 31-60 days, 61-90 days, and over 90 days. The report is stated as of a single date, so it captures your payables position at the moment you run it.

What the A/P Aging Summary shows

Each vendor you owe money to appears on its own line, with the total you owe them broken into aging buckets based on how far past due each bill is. QuickBooks measures the age from each bill's due date, so a bill that is not yet due sits in the current column and one that came due 45 days ago falls into the 31-60 bracket. The far-right column totals what you owe that vendor, and the bottom row totals every column, which gives you the full accounts payable balance as of the report date. When you run the report as of a past date, an aging method setting controls whether bills age relative to that report date or to today, so set it to the report date to preserve the position as it stood then.

The A/P Aging Summary is a date-based report. Unlike the general ledger and the financial statements, it does not change with the cash or accrual accounting method; what drives it is your open bills and their due dates as of the date you choose.

Why a CPA or auditor asks for it

The accounts payable total on this report should generally tie to the accounts payable line on an accrual-basis Balance Sheet for the same date, so an accountant uses it to prove that liability is real and to see which vendors make it up. In a review before a sale or a loan, a buyer or lender reads the aging to judge whether you are keeping current with suppliers or slipping behind. At year end it supports the payables a preparer carries on an accrual-basis return and helps confirm you have accounted for bills that were owed but not yet paid. For the bill-by-bill view behind these totals, the A/P Aging Detail lists each open bill inside the same brackets.

How to run and export the A/P Aging Summary in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and type "A/P Aging Summary" into the report search box, then open it.
2. Set the report date. The report is stated as of one date, so run it as of each fiscal year-end you want to preserve, and as of your cancellation date for the final position.
3. If you want brackets other than the default, set the days per aging period and the number of periods. When the report date is in the past, set the aging method to Report date so bills age as of that date, then run it.
4. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. The file downloads to your computer.
5. Repeat for any other as-of dates you need, such as each prior fiscal year-end.

Because the aging depends on the date you pick, one run does not preserve your whole history. Our guide to exporting all your data from QuickBooks covers how the payables reports fit with the rest of your records.

Keeping the A/P Aging Summary after you cancel

The A/P Aging Summary is part of your Books Backup archive. It matters because a cancelled paid QuickBooks Online company goes read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days, and the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and longer in some cases. Once the company is deleted, that report can no longer be pulled from QuickBooks Online, and without a saved copy, rebuilding which vendors you owed and how overdue each balance was on a given date is difficult, which is the kind of detail a later audit or vendor dispute can turn on.

Frequently asked questions

Does the A/P Aging Summary change with cash or accrual basis?

No. Unlike the general ledger and the financial statements, the aging reports are driven by dates rather than the accounting method. The report ages your open bills from their due date as of the report date, so switching between cash and accrual does not change what it shows.

How is the age of a bill calculated?

QuickBooks measures each bill's age from its due date and drops the amount into the matching column: current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, or over 90 days past due. When you run the report as of a past date, an aging method setting decides whether bills age relative to that date or to today, so set it to the report date to see the brackets as they stood then.

What is the difference between this and the Vendor Balance Summary?

The Vendor Balance Summary shows a single total owed to each vendor with no aging, while the A/P Aging Summary breaks that same total into columns by how overdue it is. If you only need to know how much you owe each vendor, the Vendor Balance Summary is simpler; if you need to know how late those amounts are, the aging report is the one to keep.