Business Documents
Statement of Account
List a client's outstanding invoices and credit notes on one document, aged into 30, 60 and 90-day buckets, with the oldest item named. The format used for chasing, rather than a second copy of every invoice.
Overview
Why send a statement of account?
A statement of account lists everything one client owes you on a given date and shows how long each item has been outstanding. Enter the unpaid invoices, add any credit notes, set the date it speaks for, and this ages the balance into not yet due, thirty, sixty, ninety and over ninety days.
The total is the least interesting number on it. A client owing the same amount across two invoices that fell due last week is in an entirely different position from one owing it on a single invoice from March, and the aging is what makes that visible: to them as much as to you. It is also what turns a vague reminder into a conversation about one specific item that has been outstanding for a specific length of time.
This produces an open-item statement: what is still owed, not every transaction that ever passed through the account. Settled invoices are dropped rather than shown as zero, because a statement whose detail is mostly paid items buries the two that are not, though the workspace reports how many were hidden, so nothing disappears without you seeing it.
Everything is calculated in your browser. A statement is an itemised record of what one named client owes and for how long, which makes it the document on this site least worth sending to a server to be formatted.
Step by step
How to produce a statement of account
Enter your details and the client's
Add your business details and the client this statement is for. Your own details are remembered in this browser; the client's are not.
Set the date it speaks for
Every aging figure is relative to the statement date, so set it before adding anything. A statement is a position on a date, not a standing document.
Add each outstanding document
List every unpaid invoice with its reference, dates and amount, plus anything already received against it. Add credit notes the same way, entered positive.
Check the aging and download
The buckets add up to the total outstanding. Download it as a PDF to send with your chasing email.
What you get
- Aged into not yet due, 30, 60, 90 and over 90 days
- Aged from the due date, or the invoice date if your client's system does
- Credit notes entered positive and subtracted
- Part payments carried through as the remaining balance
- Settled invoices dropped, with a count of what was hidden
- Says on its face that it is not an invoice
Background
What a statement is for, and what it is not
A statement exists because invoices go missing. Not usually maliciously: an invoice is emailed to one person who leaves, or approved and never scheduled, or paid against the wrong reference so it still shows as open on one side and closed on the other. A statement is the periodic reconciliation that catches all of that, and a surprising share of overdue balances are resolved by one arriving rather than by anything that could be called chasing.
It is not a request for payment, and the distinction is practical rather than pedantic. If a client pays against the statement total, the payment arrives as one lump against several invoices and somebody has to work out how to allocate it. Allocate it wrongly and the account disagrees on both sides from then on. So the document says on its face that payment should be made against the individual invoices listed, which is the sentence that keeps the account reconcilable.
The aging is the substance. Splitting a balance by how overdue it is turns a single figure into a shape, and the shape is what tells you what to do: money in the not-yet-due column needs nothing, money in the first bucket usually needs a reminder, and money in the over-ninety column is a decision about whether the relationship or the debt matters more. The same total distributed differently calls for entirely different responses.
Where the aging runs from is the one technical choice that changes the answer. Aging from the invoice date is common because it is easier to implement, and it is wrong whenever terms vary: an invoice issued forty-five days ago on sixty-day terms is not overdue at all, yet aging from the invoice date files it under thirty-one to sixty days and produces a statement demanding money that is not yet owed. Aging from the due date is the default here for that reason, with the alternative available for matching a client whose own system does it the other way.
Statements also work in the other direction, which is worth remembering before sending one. A client who receives a statement can compare it against their own ledger, and if they hold a credit note you have not applied, or paid an invoice you have not marked off, the statement is how they find out. That is a good outcome, but it means sending one with stale data is a way of demonstrating that your records cannot be relied on, at the exact moment you are asking to be paid.
Not to be confused with
- An invoice
- A request for payment for specific work, issued once. A statement lists invoices; it never replaces one, and a client who has lost an invoice needs a copy of it rather than a statement showing it exists.
- An open-item statement
- Lists what is still outstanding, aged. The format used for chasing, and what this tool produces.
- A balance-forward statement
- Opens with a brought-forward balance, lists the period's transactions, and closes with a new balance. Right for accounts with constant activity, and poor for chasing, because a reader cannot see what is actually overdue.
- An aged debtors report
- The same aging, internal, across all clients rather than one. It answers what you are owed overall; a statement answers what one client owes.
- A remittance advice
- Sent by the payer, not the supplier, saying which invoices a payment covers. The document that prevents the allocation problem a statement warns about.
- A dunning letter
- An escalating demand, usually with consequences attached. A statement is the neutral version, which is why it can be sent routinely without changing the tone of a relationship.
Reference
What a statement contains
Less than an invoice does, and the omissions are deliberate. A statement that restates payment terms or totals up tax invites a client to treat it as a bill, which is the one thing it must not be.
The date it speaks for
Every aging figure is relative to it, so it belongs in the header rather than the footer. A statement read three weeks later is not slightly out of date, it is wrong.
Required
The client and an account reference
Enough for the person in accounts payable to find the account in their own system. A reference they recognise saves a round of email more often than it seems like it should.
Required
The aging summary
The balance split by how overdue it is. It goes above the detail rather than below, because it is the reason the document exists, and its columns must add to the total.
Required
Each outstanding document
Reference, dates, and what is still owed on it. Enough for the client to match each line against their own ledger, which is the reconciliation the statement is really for.
Required
Credit notes
Listed rather than netted off silently. A client who cannot see the credit on the statement will ask about it, and one who can see it cannot claim it twice.
Optional
The total outstanding
Split into overdue and not yet due. A single figure invites a single lump payment, which is the allocation problem the rest of the document is trying to avoid.
Required
A line saying it is not an invoice
Asking for payment against the individual invoices rather than the statement. Unglamorous, and it is what keeps the account reconcilable on both sides.
Required
What is deliberately absent
No line items, no tax summary, no payment terms. Those belong to the invoices being listed, and repeating them here creates a second document that disagrees with the first.
Optional
Who it helps
Who needs a statement of account?
Freelancers with repeat clients
Where several invoices are open at once and the client's finance contact has never seen most of them. One statement does what four separate chasing emails do, and reads as administration rather than pressure.
Agencies billing in milestones
Project work produces overlapping invoices on different terms. Aging by due date is the only way to see which are genuinely late rather than merely old.
Small businesses supplying larger ones
Large accounts payable departments process what is in front of them. A monthly statement is the mechanism that gets an unnoticed invoice noticed, without anybody having to be difficult about it.
Bookkeepers running credit control
Statements sent on a schedule catch the errors that never surface otherwise (misallocated payments, unapplied credits, invoices that never arrived), and do it before they become disputes.
Anyone deciding whether to keep working
The shape of the aging is the honest answer to whether a client pays. A balance that keeps rolling into the over-ninety column is information about the relationship, not just about a month.
Anyone preparing to escalate
A statement is the document that shows a pattern rather than an incident, which is what a solicitor, a collections agency or a court will want to see first.
Do it properly
Best practices
Send them on a schedule, not when annoyed
A statement that arrives on the first of every month is administration. One that arrives only when you are frustrated is a message, and it invites a defensive reply rather than a payment.
Age from the due date
It is the only basis that respects different payment terms. Aging from the invoice date overstates how late everything is, and a client who spots that stops trusting the rest of the numbers.
Reconcile before you send
Check payments received and credits raised are on it. A statement that shows an invoice the client paid last week is a demonstration that your records are unreliable, delivered at the worst possible moment.
Ask for payment against the invoices
Say it in words on the document. A lump payment against a statement total has to be allocated by somebody, and if it is allocated wrongly both ledgers disagree from then on.
Name the oldest item
One specific reference, with the number of days attached, gives the reader something concrete to act on. A total gives them something to file.
Send it to the person who pays
The project contact who commissioned the work is usually not the person who schedules payments. A statement sent to the wrong internal address is the same as one never sent.
Keep the tone flat
The aging makes the argument on its own. A statement is most effective when it reads as a routine record, because that is what makes it easy for the recipient to forward internally.
Avoid these
Common mistakes
Aging from the invoice date
Age from the due date instead. On sixty-day terms, an invoice issued forty-five days ago is not overdue: filing it under 31–60 days demands money that is not owed and undermines every other figure.
Listing invoices that have been paid
Show only what is outstanding. Paid items pad the document and bury the two lines that need attention, which is the opposite of what a statement is for.
Letting the client pay against the statement
Ask for payment against the individual invoices, on the document. One lump sum against a statement has to be allocated by hand, and a wrong allocation puts both ledgers permanently out of step.
Omitting credit notes
List them, entered positive and subtracted. A credit the client can see cannot be claimed twice, and one they cannot see will be raised as a query instead of a payment.
Sending a statement instead of a missing invoice
Send the invoice. A statement proves an invoice exists; it is not a document most accounts payable systems can pay against, so it does not solve the problem it appears to solve.
Leaving the statement date off
Put it in the header. Every aging figure depends on it, and a statement without one cannot be checked, filed or relied on a week later.
Treating the total as the message
Lead with the aging. A balance that has just fallen due and the same balance sitting past ninety days call for entirely different conversations, and only the breakdown shows which one you are having.
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