Accounts receivable aging for Texas subcontractors: turn balances into next actions

A balance list needs a clear aging policy

Four customers owe the same total they owed last week, but the office still needs to choose which files deserve attention first. A useful aging report pairs each amount with a consistent date calculation and a specific next action. It should distinguish an accepted unpaid billing from a returned packet, a promised receipt and a disputed deduction.

Intuit’s aging guidance distinguishes current amounts from past-due buckets using transaction due dates. Record your own report policy explicitly rather than switching between invoice age and days past due without telling the reader. This guide uses days after the recorded due date. That is an operational classification, not a determination of a legally enforceable payment date.

Use the accounting system as the financial source of truth. This worked example can be maintained in a spreadsheet or reviewed beside your existing project records. It does not claim that Texas Notice Tracker has a dedicated aging-report export, accounting synchronization or automatic collection engine.

Turn the reconciled balances into assigned tasks with the payment follow-up log, keeping promises separate from cash received.

Reconcile the balance before calculating days

For a simple invoice, open balance equals the recorded invoice amount less allocated receipts and valid posted credits. Check your accounting policy for retainage, adjustments and write-offs. Do not reduce the receivable twice by subtracting both a posted credit and the same adjustment already included in the invoice amount.

Example: $10,000 recorded invoice less $3,000 allocated payment and a $500 posted credit leaves $6,500. Keep the payment reference and credit reason next to the entry. An unallocated bank deposit is not automatically payment of this invoice, and a promise to pay is not a received payment.

For a payment covering several invoices, use the remittance allocation review before changing individual balances.

Define the buckets and handle missing due dates

For this report, the standard buckets are Current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 91+ days past due. Days past due equals the as-of date minus the recorded due date in calendar days. An amount due on the as-of date is placed in Current in this example; the first overdue day is the following day. State that convention so boundary dates remain reproducible.

If a due date is missing or disputed, place the row in “Needs date review” instead of inventing a contractual term. Your accounting software may use its own fallback rules; document any difference before comparing reports. Keep invoice age in a separate column if it is useful, clearly labeled as days since issuance.

Use date-only values consistently. Avoid mixing a midnight UTC timestamp with local calendar dates when your spreadsheet calculates days. At the month-end cutoff, check boundary rows manually: 30 and 31 days belong in different buckets.

Worked example as of October 10, 2026

The following figures are invented for demonstration. They represent four open invoices with recorded due dates; no separate retainage, interest or additional disputed adjustments are included. Invoice A uses the $6,500 reconciliation above. The remaining rows are already reconciled open balances.

The report totals $18,000: $5,000 Current, $6,500 in 1–30, $4,000 in 31–60, $0 in 61–90 and $2,500 in 91+. Overdue amounts total $13,000. The oldest invoice is not the largest balance, so a blanket rule to call only the oldest customer would miss other material cash-flow risks.

A $2,000 receipt allocated to Invoice A after this cutoff does not rewrite the saved October 10 snapshot. Record it in the next report or clearly label a revised snapshot. Using a fixed report date is essential when reconciling a historical aging report to the accounting records for that same date.

Separate disputed invoices and held retainage without counting twice

Extend the fictional October 10 report above. Its $18,000 net invoice balance excludes a separate $2,000 held-retainage ledger. Within Invoice B’s $4,000 balance, $1,000 is disputed and $3,000 has no recorded dispute. The disputed $1,000 remains part of B and the 31–60 bucket; it is not another receivable or an approved credit. All other invoice balances have no recorded dispute in this example.

The net invoice control is $17,000 with no recorded dispute + $1,000 disputed = $18,000. Held retainage of $2,000 is outside those invoices, so the combined review amount is $20,000. This is a category reconciliation under these assumptions, not an amount legally due or ready to demand. If your accounting report already includes retainage, identify and reconcile that included amount instead of adding it again.

At the same cutoff, assume a documented $500 release becomes a separately identified unpaid request R-01. Transfer $500 from held to released-unpaid: held becomes $1,500 and released-unpaid becomes $500. Do not add new earned work or cash. R-01’s due-date basis is not yet established, so show it in Needs date review, outside the five standard buckets until reviewed. The original invoices and their $13,000 overdue subtotal stay unchanged.

A later $500 receipt allocated specifically to R-01 clears that release request. In the later report, original invoices remain $18,000, released-unpaid is $0 and held is $1,500, totaling $19,500. Preserve the October 10 snapshot. Approval alone moved categories; only the later receipt reduced the combined amount. These rows are successive snapshots, not totals to add together.

Use the retainage ledger for the release authorization and receipt allocation, and the dispute log for B’s challenged scope. A dispute flag alone does not reset the due date, remove the balance or determine entitlement. Record any subsequently accepted credit once, with its posting date and evidence.

• Retain invoice, project, cutoff and allocation references; link release R-01 to the authorization and its later receipt.
• Keep B’s $1,000 dispute as a subset column or flag; do not sum it again with B’s $4,000.
• Separate an unresolved due date from a confirmed overdue date. Never infer a Texas notice deadline from either aging bucket.
• Before a customer demand, reconcile unapplied cash, credits, scope and due-date evidence with the responsible reviewer.

Choose the next action from the reason, not just the bucket

Give every priority file one next action, one responsible person and one follow-up date. A 15-day-past-due accepted invoice may need a remittance confirmation. A 46-day-past-due packet returned for missing evidence needs a corrected submission. A 102-day balance with a disputed scope item may need commercial or legal escalation, not another copy of the same statement.

Do not treat the listed actions as mandatory legal escalation thresholds. The amount, customer relationship, contract, project status and professional advice can justify an earlier or different next step.

• Accepted but unpaid: verify payment scheduling and the remittance contact.
• Returned packet: resolve the identified deficiency using the resubmission workflow.
• Unapplied receipt: ask accounting to establish the allocation before changing the project balance.
• Disputed deduction: isolate the amount and collect the written basis.
• Retention not yet released: track the release conditions separately from ordinary progress-payment follow-up.

Run a repeatable weekly review

Save the report date and policy, reconcile totals to the relevant receivable ledger, then review changed rows. Record newly received payments, credits, resolved deficiencies and broken payment promises. If totals differ from accounting, locate the unmatched item before relying on a dashboard total for cash planning.

Check the separate work-month ledger and deadline-review queue during the same meeting. Waiting until an invoice enters 91+ is not a method for preserving Texas notice rights. See monthly notice review for that separate topic and obtain qualified advice for the project.

Finish with a short action list rather than a colorful report alone. A useful weekly note might say: “A: confirm remittance reference; B: upload the identified correction and retain receipt; C: schedule review of the disputed amount.” Include actual evidence and status updates before closing any action.

Reconcile changes without rewriting the prior snapshot

Keep a small cutoff review beside each saved aging report. A later receipt can explain why today’s balance differs from the saved snapshot without changing what was known at the earlier date. Use the transaction date and allocation evidence, not the date somebody forwarded an email.

Download the aging cutoff review sheet. It is a blank CSV for your own accounting review, not an accounting integration. Keep customer details in an approved system and preserve the completed report version.

Before sending an account summary, use the customer statement reconciliation guide to match the customer, project scope and cutoff to the underlying invoice balances.

Subcontractor aging-report questions

Are invoice age and days past due the same? No. Invoice age starts at issuance; this report’s overdue buckets start after the recorded due date. Label both if you use both.

Where should partially paid invoices go? Age the remaining reconciled balance using the documented policy and preserve each payment allocation. A partial receipt does not automatically make the entire invoice current.

Is 91+ a lien-filing deadline? No. Aging buckets are accounting and follow-up categories. Statutory notice and lien review use their own applicable facts and rules.

Can an aging report alone predict cash receipts? No. It shows outstanding amounts and their age under a policy. Expected receipt dates and probabilities require additional evidence; avoid counting a promise as cash.