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. This guide assumes you can already open, date, and balance an entry; if you haven’t posted one before, start with Your First Journal Entry and come back here for what’s specific to accruals.
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 2.
- 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: Enter the accrual like any journal entry
Open a new journal entry and set the company first, changing it later clears bank and credit card line accounts that don’t belong to the new company. Set Date to the last day of the period the expense belongs to, such as 07/31/2026 for a July accrual, not the day you happen to be working: posting on 08/04/2026 with an August date puts the expense in the wrong month. Write a memo that names the vendor and what is being accrued.
Debit the expense account and credit the accrued liability account. 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. See Your First Journal Entry for the mechanics of opening an entry, dating it, and entering balanced lines if any of this is unfamiliar.
Step 2: 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 3: 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. An amount you correct after approval goes back through the same reviewers without anyone configuring that behavior.
Reverse an accrual you already posted without a reversal date
If the accrual is already on the books without a reversal date, or you need an offsetting entry on a date you choose rather than the one you’d set at creation, use Create Reverse on the posted entry instead: see Reverse it for the general mechanics. 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), save it as an accrual template rather than copying last month’s entry.
Create the accrual once under Accounting → Transactions → Accruals, then choose Run each period. The Run Accrual drawer opens a journal entry prefilled from the template. You set this period’s dates, revise the amount if it changed, and post. Every entry Run creates stays linked on the accrual’s Related Records tab.
Use a recurring journal entry instead when the amount is fixed and you want a draft generated on a calendar without anyone clicking Run. Recurring templates generate on the schedule you set. Accrual templates do not generate on their own.
Keep the amount editable at run time whenever it is derived from something outside the ledger. A vacation accrual sized from current headcount, for example, changes with every joiner and leaver. The template supplies the accounts and the classifications, and you set the amount in the Run Accrual drawer. 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. Choose Download import guide to see the header and per-line columns and how multiple lines group into one entry. Where the source file uses its own column names, map the columns yourself in the field mapper.
Validation runs while you map and again when you confirm. The import skips rows with errors, 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.
Last modified on October 7, 2026
