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DualEntry’s amortization module spreads a prepaid expense (an annual insurance premium, a prepaid software subscription, a retainer) over the months it covers. You create an amortization schedule once, and DualEntry generates the monthly journal entries, posts them as their dates arrive, and tracks the remaining balance down to zero.

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Create an amortization schedule

Create schedules from the register, which sits in the sidebar under Amortization, between Fixed Assets and Revenue Recognition.
  1. Navigate to Amortization and choose New.
  2. Select the company, name the schedule, and enter the amount, currency, and exchange rate.
  3. Enter the useful life in months and the amortization start date. For a mid-life schedule, also enter the accumulated beginning balance (the amount already amortized before this schedule existed) and the accumulated-through date (the date that catch-up covers).
  4. Assign the asset account, the amortization debit account, and the amortization credit account from your chart of accounts.
  5. Optionally link a vendor or customer, add classifications, and attach supporting documents.
  6. Save as draft to review the schedule first, or post it directly.
You can also create a schedule directly from the purchase that booked the prepaid: link one source line from a bill or a direct expense, which preserves the audit trail from the schedule back to the originating transaction, the same pattern used by Fixed Assets. Validation protects the schedule math: the amount cannot be zero, the accumulated beginning balance must carry the same sign as the amount and be smaller than it, and the accumulated-through date must fall within the useful life.

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How amortization schedules work

An amortization schedule is the record that defines how a prepaid balance is spread over time, and DualEntry keeps one per prepaid item on the amortization register. Each schedule has its own number (prefixed AMS#) and carries the original amount, a useful life in months, a start date, and three GL accounts: the asset account that holds the prepaid balance, the account debited by each monthly entry (typically the expense account), and the account credited (typically the prepaid asset account itself or an accumulated amortization account). Amortization is straight-line and monthly. DualEntry divides the amount to amortize by the number of remaining months and generates one entry per month on the anniversary day of the start date. Any rounding remainder is absorbed into the final month, so the schedule always amortizes to exactly zero. Schedules you adopt mid-life are supported through two catch-up fields. Accumulated beginning balance records how much was already amortized before you created the schedule in DualEntry, and Accumulated through records the date that catch-up covers. DualEntry then amortizes only the remaining balance over the remaining months, starting the month after the accumulated-through date.
Use the catch-up fields when migrating open prepaid balances from a previous system: enter the original amount, the portion already amortized, and the date amortized through, and DualEntry continues the schedule from there instead of restarting it.
Schedules can optionally link to a vendor or a customer for register filtering and reporting, carry classifications for dimensional reporting, and hold file attachments such as the underlying contract.

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Posting behavior and statuses

Once a schedule is posted, DualEntry generates the full run of monthly amortization entries up front. Entries dated in the past or current month post immediately; future-dated entries wait as drafts and post automatically when their date arrives. Each posted entry is a standard journal entry pairing the debit and credit accounts on the schedule, and a Drafts tab on the register lets you review upcoming entries before they post. The register tracks two layers of status. The record status is the standard draft, posted, or archived lifecycle. The schedule status describes the business state: The register shows the amortized amount and the remaining balance per schedule, alongside a schedule table and chart on each record’s detail view.

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Stop, terminate, or archive a schedule

A schedule does not have to run to completion. The Terminate action stops amortization from a date you choose (it defaults to today): DualEntry archives every generated entry dated on or after that date and sets the schedule to Inactive, leaving already-posted history untouched. You can also archive a single monthly entry when one period needs manual correction, or archive the whole schedule while it is still a draft.
Terminate only archives entries that fall in open periods. Entries dated in a locked period are skipped, so unlock the period first if you need those months removed as well.
Terminate is available on posted schedules only, and a Disposed schedule cannot be terminated. Termination does not touch what already posted, so the schedule’s history remains intact for the months before the stop date. Archived amortization entries support a recover action, so an entry archived by mistake can be restored from the archived list rather than re-created by hand.

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Import and export schedules

Bulk operations cover both directions. The bulk import record type Amortizable assets loads schedules from a CSV, with columns for company, name, amount, currency and exchange rate, useful life, amortization method, the catch-up fields, the three account numbers, an optional customer name, and status. Two limits are worth knowing: the import template links schedules to customers but not to vendors (link vendors on the record after import), and amortization schedules do not support custom fields. The register exports to Excel with every schedule field plus resolved account names and numbers, the computed amortized amount, and the remaining balance, which makes the export a ready-made prepaid roll-forward for month-end close. For reconciling the prepaid asset account against that roll-forward, see the workpaper flow in account reconciliation.
Last modified on August 2, 2026