What is an open payables report?

Definition

An open payables report is the list of vendor bills that have been approved but not yet paid. In the books, it is the detail behind accounts payable, not a separate account of its own.

Each row is one unpaid bill. The total of those rows should agree with the accounts payable balance on the Balance Sheet.

Where it shows up

Balance Sheet: Related to the open accounts payable the report lists.

P&L: Related to nothing extra; the expense was already recorded.

Cash flow: Related to which of those bills will leave cash on the next run.

See also: Accounts Payable · Accounts Payable Aging · Check Run

When you look at the Balance Sheet, you see one accounts payable total. The open payables report is the list that makes up that total.

A long list with old dates usually means bills are waiting past their due dates. A short list can mean the business is paying quickly, or that bills have not been entered yet.

The Income Statement does not change when you print this report. Expense or inventory was already recorded when each vendor bill hit the books.

Cash on the Statement of Cash Flows will leave when those open bills are paid. The report is the working list for that later outflow.

How it works

The report starts from the payables subledger. It includes every vendor bill that still has an unpaid balance.

Bills that have been fully paid drop off. A partial payment leaves the remaining amount on the report.

Typical columns are vendor name, bill date, due date, original amount, and open amount. Some versions also show the bill number and the payment terms.

Teams sort it by due date before a check run. That sort answers which bills must be paid this week so cash is not late.

The report is not a journal. Printing it does not debit or credit anything; it only shows what is already on the books and still unpaid.

At month-end, the total on the report should match accounts payable on the trial balance. A difference means a bill is missing, a payment was applied to the wrong bill, or a credit has not been entered.

An unapplied payment can make a bill look open when cash already left. The report then needs a follow-up, not a new journal for the same bill.

Example

A cafe prints the open payables report on Thursday afternoon, before Friday's check run. The bakery rows show three bread bills still unpaid.

One bill is $400 due Friday, one is $500 due next Tuesday, and one is $1,200 due in two weeks. Those three rows are the bakery's open payables that day.

The cafe marks the $400 bill for Friday so it will not be late. The $500 and $1,200 stay on the report until later runs.

After Friday's payments post, the $400 row disappears. The report then lists only the two bakery bills that are still open.

No extra journal is posted for printing the report. The bills and the payments already have their own entries.

Common mix-ups

An open payables report is not the same as an accounts payable aging. The open list shows each unpaid bill, and the aging buckets those same bills by how late they are.

People also treat the report as the Balance Sheet line. The report is the detail, and the Balance Sheet shows only the total.

Another mix-up is thinking a bill is open because the paper is still on a desk. Open means the books still show an unpaid payable, not that a PDF is sitting in email.

Related terms

• Accounts Payable: Amounts the business owes vendors for goods or services already received.
• Accounts Payable Aging: A report bucketing unpaid vendor bills by how long they have been outstanding.
• Check Run: The scheduled batch in which approved vendor bills are paid.
• Cash Flow Forecast: A forward projection of cash receipts and payments.
• Vendor Bill: The invoice a supplier sends that becomes a payable.
• Days Payable Outstanding: The average number of days the business takes to pay its vendors.
• Subledger: A detailed ledger behind a single control account, such as receivables or fixed assets.
• Month-End Close: The monthly version of the close, ending in issued financial statements.