aging schedule

Beginner 💰 Finance / Accounting

Definition

A report categorizing accounts receivable by how long they've been outstanding, typically in 30-day buckets. It's a snapshot of who owes you money and which customers are slow payers or potential deadbeats.

Example Usage

The aging schedule revealed that 40% of receivables were over 90 days past due, indicating serious collection problems.

Origin

Basic accounts receivable management practice dating to early 20th century credit management

Fun Fact

The older a receivable gets, the less likely it is to be collected—debts over 90 days past due have roughly a 50% collection rate.

Source: Accounts receivable management terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

receivables

The collective pile of money that customers owe your business, representing either healthy cash flow or an impending collections nightmare depending on who's on the list. These are debts arising from sales on credit, sitting on the balance sheet as assets while you nervously check if people will actually pay. It's optimism quantified as a line item.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

appreciation

When an asset increases in value over time without you lifting a finger—the financial equivalent of your wine collection getting better with age. It's what homeowners brag about at parties and what makes early Bitcoin investors insufferable. The opposite of depreciation, and the reason everyone thinks they're a real estate genius in a bull market.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

Leveraged Buyout

Buying a company using mostly borrowed money, which is the corporate equivalent of buying a house with no money down except the house is a billion-dollar company. The acquired company often ends up paying for its own acquisition, like making someone pay for their own kidnapping ransom.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

accretion

The gradual increase in value of a bond as it approaches maturity, or the increase in earnings per share following an acquisition. Basically, when numbers get bigger and finance people get to feel smart about predicting it.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

VAT

Value Added Tax, the European way of making you pay incrementally for everything at each stage of production and distribution. Unlike American sales tax that hits you once at checkout, VAT is baked into the price at every step, making it simultaneously more transparent and more insidious. British tourists love explaining this to confused Americans at duty-free shops.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

Blue Chip

Large, well-established companies that are considered safe investments, named after the highest-value poker chips because Wall Street can't resist gambling metaphors. They're the financial equivalent of ordering chicken fingers at a fancy restaurant: boring, but unlikely to disappoint.

💰 Finance / Accounting

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