Aged debtors report

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-01

// THE SHORT ANSWER

An aged debtors report lists what each customer owes, split by how long each invoice has been outstanding — current, then thirty, sixty, ninety days and beyond. It is the receivables ledger as a lender actually reads it: which customers make up the balance, how much is overdue, whether the overdue part is growing faster than sales, and which debts sit past the age a financier would count as eligible. Asked for in an interview or a credit review, it should come with a view of what it is expected to show, and why that would change the answer.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.