Posting an Accrual

Some Of the nominals and ledgers used in this topic may be different to those in your chart of accounts.

An accrual on income or expenditure is an amount due or the calculation of an amount due in an accounting period, which is unpaid at the end of that period. This could be an insurance premium or an electricity bill that has not yet been paid, or interest which is due, but has not yet been received.

In the financial statements, accruals are:

  • Added to the income or expense account (e.g. insurance account, electricity account, interest, etc.)
    shown in the trial balance before it is listed in the statement of profit or loss.

  • Shown as an asset or liability in the year end statement of financial position.

The reason for dealing with accruals in this way is to ensure that the statement of profit or loss records the amounts that has been incurred for the year, instead of simply the amount that has been paid. In other words, the income/expense is adjusted to relate to the time period covered by the statement of profit or loss. The year end statement of financial position shows an asset/liability for the amount that is due but unpaid.

The automatic accrual reversals is a function performed on an Accrual document input form, which is used to automatically reverse and allocate any accrual posted in the system at the Date, Year code and Period specified on the original posting.

This topic assumes that you are familiar with the completion of document input forms. If you need more detailed instructions (such as the selection of dates, periods, and accounts, and so on. Refer to Completing Document Input Forms.

Posting an Accrual consists of the following:

Selecting the Accrual Document Input Form

Recording the Details of the Accrual

Selecting the Accrual Document Input Form

  1. Go to Documents, then select Document Input from the menu.
  2. Select ... in Document type, then double-select to select ACRL - Accruals from the Select a document type dialog.
  3. The Journalinput form is then displayed in Input form. The Number defaults to the next number in the sequence for the selected document type.
  4. The Date defaults to the current date and the Period defaults to the current accounting period.

    The date and period must be the date the accrual is being posted (this could be the last date of the accounting period). If the date needs to be changed, select the down arrow and select the required date from the calendar. If the period needs to be changed, select the Drill (...) in Period, then double-select to select the required period from the Select a period dialog.

  5. Select OK to confirm your selections. The applicable document input form is then displayed.

Recording the Details of the Accrual

  1. The Journal document input form is displayed populated with the details entered in the Document Input dialog. When you have entered the required accrual information, select REVERSING, then POST.