What is an aged trial balance (ATB) and why yours matters

An aged trial balance, usually shortened to ATB and sometimes called an aged receivables report, is a list of every unpaid customer invoice, grouped by how long each one has been outstanding. It is the single clearest picture of who owes you money and how worried you should be about each of them.

How to read the buckets

ATBs group debts into aging buckets: current, thirty days, sixty days, and ninety plus. The buckets matter because collectability decays with age. A debt in the current column is routine. The same debt at ninety days is a project. Watching invoices migrate rightward across your ATB, month after month, is watching your own cash quietly walk out the door.

How to export yours

• ✓Xero: Accounting, then Reports, then Aged Receivables Detail, then export
• ✓MYOB: Reports, then Receivables, then Ageing Detail, then export
• ✓QuickBooks: Reports, then search Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail, then export

Whichever system you use, export it monthly at minimum. Businesses that look at their ATB on a schedule chase sooner, and businesses that chase sooner simply collect more, because they reach the debtor before everyone else in the queue does.

From report to money

The ATB tells you the what. The work is the chasing: a reminder for everything overdue, escalating as it ages, every single week, without fail. That consistency is the entire game, and it is also the part humans are worst at, which is why it is the part worth automating.

Put your ATB to work

Mona Collects reads your ATB and does the rest: upload it straight in, or connect Xero and skip the export entirely. Every overdue invoice gets chased with escalating letters until it is paid, and your morning report shows the money landing.