AP Aging & DPO
Age the open payables at period end, and compare how fast settled invoices were actually paid against contracted terms.
- General ledger alone
What it checks
- Ageing of open items at period end, by band, against terms.
- Days to pay — payment date less invoice date — on invoices settled in the period, per vendor.
- Days early or late — payment date less due date — signed, against contracted terms.
- Portfolio DPO on the whole balance and the whole purchase population.
How the result is read
Two tests on two populations. Ageing covers what is still owed; the settled population carries two measures routinely confused — days to pay, from the invoice date, which DPO is built on, and days early or late, from the due date, which is performance against the agreement. The second reads both ways: far slower signals unrecorded liabilities, far faster is the fraud-relevant one.
The worksheet, on the demo engagement
AP Aging & DPO, as the application draws it for Harrow Precision Engineering Ltd, the fictional demo engagement — one row per past-due band, plus one per vendor on the settled population.
Bands in ageing order, oldest last — the order is the reading, so nothing re-sorts them by size.
- Portfolio DPO
- 77 days
- Debit balances (reclass)
- (240)
- 90+ no dispute
- 460
Two populations, two tests. The ageing covers what is still owed and is where the aged balance and the debit balances surface; days-to-pay covers what has already been settled and reads in both directions — early settlement to Orion is the fraud-relevant signal, late settlement to Cedar the liquidity one. Portfolio DPO is the whole closing balance (8,420) over the whole purchase population, giving 77 days; computing it from a handful of listed vendors against total spend would give 47 and describe nobody. Early and late carry opposite signs.
Result grid6 of 13 rows
| Past-due bucket / Vendor | AP balance | Contract terms | Days to pay (settled) | Delta vs terms | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ageing of open items at period end | |||||
| Not yet due | 5,340 | ||||
| 1-30 days past due | 1,780 | ||||
| 31-90 days past due | 840 | ||||
| 90+ days past due | 460 | aged, no dispute recorded | |||
| Total open payables | 8,420 | Ties to the balance sheet |
In the application
AP Aging & DPO is filed under Purchases & payables, index letter D. "Run all analyses" runs it with every other analysis the ledger can answer. The worksheet states the population it tested on its face — or "Not applicable" with the reason when a column it depends on is empty — and the Excel workbook the engagement exports files it under D, beside an index of the source files with their SHA-256 fingerprints.
Read it with
Run your next audit file test without the Excel crash.
One free engagement to evaluate, valid 60 days. The ledger never leaves the machine.
- 20 minutes
- Runs on a fictional engagement
- No client data required