Use this guide when an expense belongs to the period you are closing and the bill has not arrived yet. You finish with a posted accrual, its reversal already scheduled in the next period, and the support attached to the record.
Accruals in DualEntry are ordinary journal entries with a reversal date set. Nothing about the entry form is accrual-specific, so everything that governs a journal entry (balancing, period locks, approval routing, classifications) governs an accrual too.
Before you start
Line these up before you open the entry form. Having them ready keeps the accrual to a single pass.
- A role that can post journal entries. Where an approval workflow covers journal entries, the entry is held in draft and routed instead of posting on save.
- An open period for both dates. The accrual date and the reversal date are each checked against the AP, AR, and Other GL period locks for the company, and a date inside a locked section blocks the save.
- An accrued liability account in your chart of accounts, plus the expense account the accrual hits.
- The amount and the basis for it. An accrual is an estimate, so keep the quote, the vendor statement, or the calculation you used; you attach it to the entry in Step 4.
- Classification values for any account that has Require classification enabled. DualEntry blocks posting when a required classification is missing.
Post an accrual that reverses itself
An accrual and its reversal are created together in one pass. Setting the reversal date on the entry is what makes the pair, so do it before you save rather than returning to the record later.
Step 1: Open a new journal entry
Navigate to Accounting → Transactions → Journal Entries and choose New journal entry.
Set the company first. Changing the company later clears bank and credit card line accounts that do not belong to the new company, and every line account must belong to the same company as the entry.
Step 2: Date the entry to the period you are closing
Set Date to the last day of the period the expense belongs to, such as 07/31/2026 for a July accrual, and write a memo that names the vendor and what is being accrued. A memo is required to post.
The date decides the period, not the day you happen to be working. Posting a July accrual on 08/04/2026 with an August date puts the expense in the wrong month.
Step 3: Enter the expense and liability lines
Debit the expense account and credit the accrued liability account, one amount per line. Entering a debit clears the credit on that line and the other way around.
Add classifications on the expense line where you report by department, location, or project, and set Customer or Vendor on a line when you want the accrual visible in that sub-ledger. The totals row at the bottom of the Lines table shows debits, credits, and the out-of-balance difference; the entry cannot post until that difference is zero in the company’s base currency.
Step 4: Set the reversal date and attach the support
Set Reversal Date to the first day of the next period. DualEntry immediately creates a paired entry dated on that date with every debit and credit flipped, so the accrual clears itself when the real invoice posts.
The reversal date must be on or after the entry’s posting date; an earlier date is rejected. Attach the quote, statement, or calculation that supports the estimate. Attachments sit at the header level, and each entry holds up to 25 files of 10 MB each in PDF, PNG, JPEG, or CSV format.
A reversal date that falls in a locked period blocks the save along with the accrual itself. Set a reversal date in an open period, or unlock the period first.
Step 5: Save, or route the entry for approval
Save the entry. Where no active approval workflow matches it, saving posts it to the General Ledger at once; there is no separate post step. Choose Save as Draft to hold an entry you are not ready to post, or Send for Approval to route it.
Where an active workflow does match, the entry stays in draft with no GL impact until every stage approves, and DualEntry posts it automatically at that point. Editing an entry that already posted under an active workflow returns it to draft and re-runs the approval cycle, so an amount you correct after approval goes back through the same reviewers without anyone configuring that behavior.
Reverse an entry you already posted
Use this when the entry is already on the books without a reversal date, or when you need an offsetting entry on a date you choose rather than the one you set at creation.
Open the entry from the Posted tab and choose Create Reverse. The reversal date defaults to the day after the original entry’s posting date, and you can set any date on or after the original. DualEntry creates the offsetting entry and links the two, so each record shows its counterpart on its Related Records tab.
An entry that already carries a reversal cannot be reversed a second time. DualEntry shows a confirmation warning before you continue on an entry it has already reversed. Attach supporting documents to the reversing entry as well when your audit file needs the backup on both records.
Intercompany journal entries are the exception: they support neither a reversal date nor the Create Reverse action. Offset one by writing a second intercompany entry with the debits and credits swapped.
Spread one accrual across several months
A bill that arrives late and covers a stretch of past months (an annual audit fee, a true-up, a service period that spans a close) needs the expense in the months it belongs to rather than all in the month it landed. Which path you take depends on whether those months are still open.
For months in open periods, post one accrual per month, each dated that month’s last day, each with its own reversal date in the following month. The entries are independent, so a later correction touches one month rather than the whole run.
For months in locked periods, post a single catch-up entry in the current open period for the closed months combined, and note the coverage period in the memo. Unlocking a closed period to spread the expense correctly is a decision for your controller, and unlocking requires a reason that is recorded in the audit trail.
Where the amount was paid up front rather than accrued (an insurance premium or a prepaid subscription), use an amortization schedule instead of a run of journal entries. A schedule adopted after the coverage started carries the catch-up in its Accumulated beginning balance and Accumulated through fields, and DualEntry spreads only the remaining balance over the remaining months.
Set up a recurring accrual
For an accrual you post every month in the same shape (unused vacation, an estimated utility charge, a management fee), create a recurring template once rather than copying last month’s entry.
Choose New recurring journal entry from the Journal Entries page and define the header, the lines, and the schedule (frequency, start date, and end date). DualEntry generates an entry from the template as each scheduled date arrives, with no manual trigger. Templates and the entries they produce are visible on the Recurring tab, and each generated entry links back to its template.
Recurring templates generate drafts by default. Review each draft and post it, or enable auto-posting where the amount is fixed and needs no period-over-period review.
Keep drafts rather than auto-posting whenever the amount is derived from something outside the ledger. A vacation accrual sized from current headcount, for example, changes with every joiner and leaver, so the template supplies the accounts and the classifications and you set the amount before posting. Apply the department classification on the expense line so a $6,000 monthly vacation accrual charged to Sales reports under that department.
Load a batch of accruals from a file
Where the accrual list comes out of a spreadsheet or a payroll export, load it through bulk import rather than keying entries one at a time.
Open Workflows → Bulk Imports, choose New Import, and choose Journal entries. The Journal Entries list reaches the same importer from its overflow menu, as Import from CSV.
Journal entries are a multi-line record type, so the import loads full entries rather than header totals. Download the template from New Import → Journal entries → Prepare File for Import to see the header and per-line columns and how the template groups several lines into one entry. Where the source file uses its own column names, paste the data under the template’s headers or map the columns yourself in the field mapper.
Validation runs while you map and again when you confirm. Rows with errors are not imported, and each message names the source row number so you can find it in the original file, counting from the header row. The balancing rule is the same as in the form: total debits must equal total credits before an entry posts. For the full list of messages with a cause and a fix for each, see bulk import errors.
Verify
The accrual is complete when all of these hold:
- The entry appears on the Posted tab of the Journal Entries list, with a status of Posted rather than Draft or Pending Approval.
- The Related Records tab on the accrual shows the reversal, and the reversal shows the accrual.
- The GL Impact tab shows the expected debit and credit against the expense and accrued liability accounts.
- The accrued liability account nets to zero for the pair once the reversal date arrives, which you can confirm on the trial balance for the following period.
- The Activity tab records the creation, and any approval or auto-approval events, against the person who took them.
Troubleshooting
Common errors on an accrual come down to dates, balancing, or approval routing. The table below maps what you see to what to do about it.
