Customer Account Ledger
The customer ledger answers the relationship question — how do we stand with this customer? — as a dated statement with a running balance: every invoice, credit and payment, one line each, from opening position to today's net. It lives on the customer's account record and stars in the AR workflow, so its full walkthrough sits in the AR section: Customer Account Ledger (Accounts Receivable).
Access you'll need. Any REDA Financials permission set can open a customer's ledger and read it; what you see is limited to the records your role can read.
What you get, in brief
- Ledger Summary tiles on the account page — Total Outstanding, Unapplied Payments, Unapplied Memos, Net Outstanding — the position at a glance.
- The Account Ledger screen — entity selector, date range, dimension columns, charges/payments with running balance, every line linking to its document.
- Export PDF — the classic Statement of Account for sending to the customer.
The four position numbers
The tiles answer the relationship question in a fixed order, and reading them as a set is the skill:
| Tile | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Total Outstanding | Open balances across the customer's posted invoices — what the paperwork says they owe. |
| Unapplied Payments | Money already received but not yet matched to invoices. |
| Unapplied Memos | Credit the customer holds that hasn't been applied or refunded. |
| Net Outstanding | The honest position once unapplied money and credit are counted — the number to discuss with the customer. |
Meridian's tenant Brightline Retail Group is the textbook case: Total Outstanding 19,500 on invoices, but Unapplied Payments 2,000 — an on-account wire nobody has matched yet — so the true position is Net Outstanding 17,500. Chase the 19,500 and the first thing the tenant says is "we sent you two thousand dollars in June." The tiles exist so that call never happens. (Accounts that are also vendors get a Total Liabilities breakdown too — what you owe them, alongside what they owe you.)
The ledger screen, walked through
From the Ledger Summary, View Ledger opens the full screen. Up top: the entity selector (a customer can trade with several of your companies; pick one for its currency-consistent story, or All Entities for the whole relationship in corporate currency), From / To date filters, a Dimensions section where your books are dimensioned, and Refresh / Export PDF actions. The same position tiles repeat above the detail.
Then the statement itself — Transaction Detail — with one dated row per event: Date, Description, Reference (a link to the invoice, receipt or memo), Charges, Payments, and the running Balance. The arithmetic is a bank statement's: opening position, plus charges, minus payments, equals the net position after each line. On Brightline's ledger the 15 June on-account wire shows as a 2,000 payment leaving the balance at 17,500 — the tiles and the bottom line of the statement always tell the same story, because they're computed from the same rows.
What's in, what's out
- Posted documents only. Draft invoices haven't happened yet; voided documents' postings are gone. The ledger is the books, not the pipeline.
- Bookkeeping plumbing is filtered out. The system's internal control-account movements and application records (the entries that match receipts to invoices) are excluded — otherwise every settled invoice would appear twice. The running balance is the clean net position.
- Customer-and-vendor accounts show both sides in one ledger — their invoices and your bills in one dated stream, netting to the true position. The payables read of the same screen is the Vendor Account Ledger.
Where it sits among the reports
Three tools carry the receivables story, and each answers a different question. The AR aging snapshot answers across all customers, how late is our money? — Meridian's June snapshot froze 52,150 outstanding across 7 invoices, with 27,650 current, 20,150 recently overdue and 4,350 sliding into 31–60 days. The customer ledger answers what's the story with this one? — the per-relationship detail behind one slice of those buckets, including the unapplied cash the aging deliberately ignores. And the balance sheet's receivables line answers what does it all sum to in the books? Meridian's collections routine runs them in that order: aging to find who, ledger to learn why, and only then the chasing email.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Chasing Total Outstanding | It ignores money already received on account — Brightline's 19,500 is really 17,500 | Chase (and reconcile) against Net Outstanding, after reading all four tiles |
| Expecting a draft invoice on the ledger | The ledger is posted accounting only — the "missing" line isn't in the books yet | Post the invoice, then Refresh |
| Reading one entity's ledger as the whole relationship | A group tenant may owe your US entity and hold credit with your UK one | Use the entity selector deliberately — per entity for statements, All Entities for the whole-group net in corporate currency |
| Sending a screenshot instead of the statement | Screenshots crop, age instantly, and carry no scope | Export PDF — a dated Statement of Account for exactly the period in question |
| Comparing the ledger to an aging snapshot from another day | The snapshot froze its date; the ledger is live — the difference is real activity | Match dates before comparing, and expect unapplied cash to explain most residual gaps |
Where to go next
- Customer Account Ledger — the full walkthrough
- AR Aging Reports & Snapshots — the across-customers view.
- Vendor Account Ledger — the same tool, payables side.
Frequently asked questions
Aging is the across-customers lateness view — buckets and totals, frozen into snapshots for reporting. The ledger is one customer's complete dated story, live, with running balance and unapplied money made visible. Find who in the aging; learn why in the ledger.
Check the Unapplied Payments tile first (received but unmatched money is the usual answer), then the date range and entity selector — the payment may sit with another of your entities or outside the filtered period. If it's truly absent, it hasn't been recorded as a cash receipt yet.
The relationship across every entity the customer trades with, stated in your corporate currency so the amounts are addable. For a statement you'll send the customer, switch to the specific entity — that's the set of books their contract lives in.
The ledger is the relationship view — deliberately free of debit/credit plumbing. Click the row's Reference to open the document, and drill from there; or investigate account-side in the GL Account Ledger.
Live — built from the accounting transactions the moment it renders, with a Refresh button after you change something. For a frozen, defensible point-in-time record, that's what aging snapshots are for.
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