Exception aging that finance teams trust
Aging reports only help when ownership and escalation rules are as clear as the day count.
An aging report with no owner column is a wall chart, not a control. In fieldwork we look for three signals: who receives items at day seven, who can force-clear, and whether aging resets when someone adds a comment.
Mild red flags
- Items bounce between “pending bank” and “pending ops” without a decision log
- Aging resets on every reassignment
- The same person prepares and force-clears high-value items
Document those patterns plainly in the audit file. Controllers usually already feel the friction; naming it helps the next close more than a generic maturity label.