How to read a payables aging report for your rental properties

What the report shows

The report has one row per vendor (or per bill) and a column for each age bucket. Age is counted from the due date, not from the date you received the bill. A bill due on the 10th and still unpaid on the 25th is 15 days past due and sits in the 1 to 30 column.

Example a made-up owner has three open bills. $180 is not yet due, $640 is 15 days late and $2,400 is 45 days late. The report total is $3,220 ($180 plus $640 plus $2,400), and 75% of it ($2,400 of $3,220 is 74.5%, about 75%) is more than a month late.

How to read it in two minutes

1. Check the total against the accounts payable balance on the balance sheet. They must match. If not, a bill is missing or entered twice.
2. Look at the oldest column first. Each amount there is a vendor waiting the longest, and some may charge late fees or stop taking your calls.
3. Look for the same vendor in several columns. That points to a dispute or a missed invoice, not just slow payment.
4. Compare the total to your cash. If the owed amount is bigger than the bank balance, plan which bills to pay first.

Which bills to pay first

There is no legal ranking among ordinary vendor bills, so this is a judgment, not a rule. A practical order:

• Anything tied to a deadline in the lease or the law, such as a utility you must keep on or a repair that affects habitability.
• Vendors you need again soon, such as the plumber or the HVAC company.
• Bills with a late fee or a discount for early payment.
• Everything else, oldest first.

A bill you dispute should not just age. Write down what you dispute, tell the vendor, and note it on the bill. If the invoice is higher than the quote, what to do when a vendor invoice is higher than the quote lists the steps.

Run it per property

If each property has its own LLC and its own bank account, run the report for one property at a time. A roofer's bill for the duplex must be paid from the duplex's account, and a combined report hides which account is short. Paying one LLC's bills from another account mixes the books, so see commingling funds in a rental LLC before you do it.

The IRS recordkeeping page says to keep supporting documents for your entries. Keep the bill and the proof of payment together so an old line on the report can be traced in a minute.

How often to run it

Weekly if you have more than a few bills a month, and always as part of the month-end close. The month-end close checklist is the natural place for it: the report total must equal the payables balance before you call the month closed.

How DoorKeeping handles it

DoorKeeping keeps a ledger for each property, and a bill you approve stays open on that property until it is paid. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT, through the DoorKeeping connection, which bills are open for a property and how old they are. It reads the same ledger the profit and loss uses. Your preparer decides how bills are treated on the return.

Sources

1. IRS, Recordkeeping, read Oct 30, 2026
2. IRS, Publication 538, Accounting Periods and Methods, read Oct 30, 2026

Questions

What are the aging buckets on a payables report?

Most reports use current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days, counted from each bill's due date. Some count from the invoice date, so check which one your report uses.

Does the aging total have to equal accounts payable?

Yes. If the report total and the balance sheet payables balance differ, a bill was entered twice, left out, or paid without being cleared.

Do small landlords need a payables aging report?

If you have more than a few open bills at once, yes. It is a short list sorted by age, and it keeps you from missing a due date.