How to calculate debtor days in Xero, Sage, Quickbooks and FreeAgent
Debtor days, sometimes known as days sales outstanding (DSO), can have a significant impact on a business’ cashflow.
As an accountant, you’re always looking out for your clients’ best interests. Establishing their debtor days average is a great first step in helping them get paid faster; especially if you’re able to offer them a credit control service.
By establishing their debtor days average, you can pinpoint which clients will benefit from your expertise and demonstrate how you can impact their bottom line.
How to establish debtor days in Xero
To find out your clients’ debtor days average in Xero, you need to run an Executive Summary. This is a report which will give you an overview of their profitability, balance sheet and income, as well as their debtor days.
To run the report:
1) Go to the Accounting Menu and select Reports.
2) Under Financial, click More Reports.
3) Click Executive Summary.
4) Select the Date that you want to measure.
5) From the Show field, select Summary and Ratios.
6) Click Update.
7) Scroll down to the ratios section of the report. Under Position you’ll see average debtor days.

How to establish debtor days in Sage 50
To find your clients’ debtor days in Sage 50, follow these steps. Note, this analysis is not available in Sage 50 Accounts Essentials or Sage Instant Accounts.
1) Navigate to Customers.
2) Click Chase Debt.
3) Click Debt Analysis.
4) In this window you will see Company’s Days Sales Outstanding.

How to establish debtor days in QuickBooks
Quickbooks doesn’t currently offer a debtor days report, so you will need to calculate your clients’ debtor days manually. The calculation for debtor days is:
(accounts receivables ÷ credit sales) x days in the period = debtor days.
To get the components for this formula, follow these steps:
1) Navigate to Reports.
2) In the Who Owes You section click Accounts Receivable Ageing Summary.
3) Set the period you wish to measure.
4) Click Run Report, this will show your accounts receivables for this period.
5) Navigate back to Reports.
6) Click Invoices and Received Payments.
7) Set the period you wish to measure.
8) Click Run Report, this will show your credit sales for this period by customer. You can export this report to Excel to quickly calculate the total credit sales for the period.
9) Divide the accounts receivable by the credit sales and multiply by the number of days in the period. This will give you the debtor days.
How to establish debtor days in FreeAgent
FreeAgent also doesn’t currently offer a debtor days report. To work out your client’s debtor days, follow these steps:
1) Navigate to the Balance Sheet
2) You’ll find the accounts receivables under Trade Debtors in the balance sheet.
3) Navigate to the Profit and Loss Account, where you’ll find the business’ credit sales.
4) Manually calculate the debtor days: (accounts receivables ÷ credit sales) x days in the period = debtor days.
Accounting and bookkeeping firms: credit control as a service
Satago’s practice platform is a great way for your firm to offer credit control services to all or part of your client base.
Satago connects to your and your clients accounting software and integrates with your email provider, so you can send automated payment reminders to customers from your own email address.
You can track customer responses to payment reminders within the platform and easily measure the impact of the automated emails on your client’s sales ledger, making this an easy service to manage.
By offering to manage credit control for your clients, you can help them reduce their debtor days by up to 72% in as little as one month and tangibly increase their cash balance, as well as driving additional revenue for your practice.
To find out more, sign up to Satago.