Accounts Payable Aging & Payment Scheduler

Every week the same decision comes round: there are more bills than cash, and you have to choose who gets paid. Pay the wrong supplier late and deliveries stop; pay everyone early and the bank balance runs dry; miss a 2% discount and you have paid more than you needed to.

This template turns that decision into a clear, repeatable payment run. List your suppliers with their terms, any early-payment discount and whether they are critical, then enter or paste the unpaid bills. It works out each bill’s due date, days overdue and aging bucket, values every discount as an annualised return, and ranks the bills: overdue bills for critical suppliers first, then other overdue bills, discounts that beat your hurdle rate, and bills due before the next run.

Payment Run lists the bills to pay, in order, until the cash you have set aside (minus a buffer) is used — and shows what has been deferred. Aging gives the position by supplier, and the Dashboard adds an eight-week outlook of what falls due.

What you get

• Aging by supplier and bucket: current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90+ days overdue
• Due dates from supplier terms when the bill has none; partial payments and credit notes supported
• Payment run in four priority tiers within cash available minus a buffer, with deferred bills shown
• Early-payment discounts (e.g. 2/10 net 30) valued as an annualised return against your hurdle rate
• Disputed and on-hold bills are never paid automatically
• Eight-week outlook of what falls due, plus overdue
• Dashboard with six KPIs, run-by-priority and most-overdue tables, and four charts: aging, weekly outlook, largest balances, run by priority
• Printable Payment Run list with cumulative total
• 12 built-in checks (unknown suppliers, duplicate bills, overpayments, date errors, reconciliations) with an overall status
• Up to 1,000 bills and 100 suppliers in a macro-free .xlsx

Sheets in the workbook

• Start Here — Purpose, quick start, a live worked example, colour key and navigation.
• Dashboard — Payables, overdue, payment run vs cash, discounts, eight-week outlook and four charts.
• Setup — As-at and run dates, cash for the run, buffer, due-soon window and discount hurdle.
• Suppliers — Up to 100 suppliers with terms, early-payment discounts and critical flag.
• Bills — Up to 1,000 supplier bills with due date, aging, discount value and payment-run decision.
• Aging — Outstanding by supplier and aging bucket, with the amount in this payment run.
• Payment Run — The bills to pay in this run, in priority order, with cumulative total vs cash (up to 80 lines).
• Checks — Data and reconciliation checks with an overall status.
• Notes & Tests — How each result is calculated, and test scenarios you can run.

Who it is for

Bookkeepers, accounts-payable clerks, finance managers and owners of small and mid-sized businesses who decide each week which suppliers to pay.

Practical uses

• The weekly or fortnightly payment run
• Deciding which early-payment discounts to take
• Planning cash for the bills due over the next two months
• Preparing for supplier calls about overdue balances

In the download

• BabaDigit_AP_Aging_Payment_Scheduler.xlsx — 9 sheets
• README with the full usage guide
• Licence (own business and client use)
• Worked sample data for a fictional wholesale distributor, clearly labelled

Requirements

• Microsoft Excel 2016 or later, or Microsoft 365
• Also opens in LibreOffice Calc; Google Sheets and Apple Numbers import not yet tested
• No macros, no add-ins, no internet connection required

Please read

• A payables planning tool, not an accounting system: it does not post payments, create bank files or send money.
• The run follows strict priority order and stops at the first bill that does not fit in the cash available.
• Discounts apply only to bills with nothing paid yet. Amounts in one currency, including any sales tax/VAT payable to the supplier.
• This is a tool, not financial, accounting, tax or legal advice.