Accrual automation that hands you every month-end accrual as a cited draft entry by day one, checked so no cost is counted twice
Every accrual proposed with its proof by day one, checked so no cost is counted twice.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Software that prepares the month-end accruals — costs incurred but not yet billed — from the systems that show them, and books them as reversing journal entries. Accrual Automation does this with eight agents that read open POs, goods received not invoiced, contracts, usage and vendor emails, propose each accrual as a draft entry with every input cited, and check it against invoices until the period locks. A staff accountant approves, edits or rejects each one.
How to choose AI solutions for back-office and enterprise work →
Updated
At every month-end the close team has to book the costs it has incurred but not yet been billed for: goods received with no invoice, monthly service fees, freight and staff hours, utilities, legal work in progress. A staff accountant rebuilds them on working day 2 or 3 from the open PO and GR/IR reports, a spreadsheet template and email replies from budget owners — replies that come late, or as a guess. Fees are missed when a contract renews, usage is estimated from last month's bill, and the rate in the formula is not always the rate in the agreement.
The risk sits at the edges of the cut-off. An invoice that reaches AP after the cut-off and is posted to the period while the accrual is also booked counts the cost twice. A reversal flag forgotten leaves a stale accrual on the balance sheet. A vendor billed every month with nothing proposed is an unrecorded liability waiting for the auditor's search. And the support the auditor asks for — under PCAOB AS 2501, how each estimate was made and from what data — is scattered across inboxes and spreadsheets. Next month the estimate is rarely compared with the invoice, so the same misses repeat.
Estimated split of one staff accountant's hours on the month-end accruals for three entities, by hand and with the solution.
Eight agents scan, calculate, sweep and check every accrual; the accountant approves each one and only approved entries post.
Kestrel & Vane Group closes September for three US entities — Motion Systems in Dayton, Distribution in Memphis and Field Services in Austin. The cut-off was Wednesday 30 September at 18:00. It is Friday 2 October, working day 2, and decisions are due at 14:00. Here is the day, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Sam opens Today and the accrual lead tells him what happened overnight: the agents read 1,842 open order lines, 214 receipts with no invoice, 312 contracts and 1,146 emails and proposed 64 accruals, $1,486,229.91. Since yesterday 26 are posted, the duplicate checker withdrew 4 because their invoices arrived, and 2 are with Nadia. In the centre is a stack of draft journal entries; on the right, every accrued-liability account against August, with one marked “Needs an explanation”.
Accrual lead: “20 need you, $668,221.95, by 14:00.”
ACR-0917, Cobalt Logistics, September outbound freight: $86,400.00, Dr 5410 Freight out, cost centre 4480 Warehouse, Cr 2110 Accrued freight, posting 30 Sep and reversing 1 Oct. The calculation is 20 loads to Chicago at $1,380, 16 to Atlanta at $2,150 and 8 to Monterrey at $3,050, from transport agreement TA-2025-031 schedule B. Behind it fan out the PO, three receipts, the rate card and Cobalt's email; Sam clicks “20 loads” and the delivery receipt opens at the line.
Receipt 5000412231: “20 loads delivered, each with a signed proof of delivery (POD 7731-0901 to 7731-0928).”
The support pack shows the agents' work on the entry: the source scanner read 6 documents up to the cut-off, the accrual calculator priced 3 lines with every input cited at 97% confidence, the policy checker applied close policy CP-4 — above the $2,500 threshold, within a staff accountant's limit — and the duplicate checker found no Cobalt invoice in the AP inbox or posted after the cut-off, and no open August accrual.
“Agents propose and check; they never approve. Only an approved entry posts, and the posting agent cannot change an amount.”
Sam asks. The duplicate checker reads the AP inbox for 1–2 October, 412 invoices, none from Cobalt; the 96 invoices posted to September after the cut-off, none for PO 4500121904; August's accruals, reversed on 1 September; and the other September proposals. Cobalt bills in arrears and its email says the statement comes on 8 October.
Duplicate checker: “I will keep watching until September locks on Mon 5 Oct.”
Over six months this accrual has landed within 1.2% of Cobalt's invoice, and the accrual lead recommends it as proposed. Sam approves: the sheet shows every input cited from 6 sources, the duplicate check clear and the policy check on account, cost centre and threshold, and asks for a reason code. He picks AP-01, “Supported as proposed”; a note, if he writes one, is kept in the audit trail.
The posting agent checks that period 2026/09 is open for US01, posts with the support attached, confirms JE 1900045912 and schedules the reversal for 1 October in period 2026/10. Next up is Brackenridge Builders, a dock extension in Memphis certified at 62% against 45% billed: $82,620.00, which the policy checker moved from 6310 Repairs to 1590 Construction in progress because it belongs to capital project CP-26-0412.
Posting agent: “It reverses on 1 Oct 2026, so Cobalt Logistics’s invoice will land once, in October.”
The completeness sweeper compared 148 vendors billed every month with the proposals and found one missing: Telvara Communications, billed for 14 months, with no September invoice and no proposal. It raised ACR-0940 at the average of the last six monthly invoices, $22,815.40, to 6610 Telecom for the Austin office. The calculator's confidence was 71%, below 80%, so it asked a person.
“Expected, not found: raised by the completeness sweep, not by a source document.”
Five questions went out this close, each with the evidence attached and a clock. Tomás Lindqvist in AP confirmed Telvara's bill has not arrived: “Telvara moved its billing to a new portal in September and the bill has not been released yet. Accrue it.” Owen Tse, project manager in Austin, was asked whether Ashgrove's milestone 2 design freeze — a $64,000 fee earned on written acceptance under SOW-2026-019 clause 5.2 — was accepted by 30 September. His reply is attached to the entry as a cited source.
Owen Tse: “Yes, accepted by 30 Sep. I accepted the design freeze on 29 September in the project portal; the signed acceptance is attached.”
The duplicate checker compares every open proposal with new invoices every 30 minutes until September locks on Mon 5 Oct at 18:00. At 09:48 it finds Kendal Tool & Die's invoice KTD-11904, dated 30 Sep for September deliveries, covering the full $44,860.00, and withdraws ACR-0859. Earlier it withdrew Brightwater, Kinsel, Upton and Northgate and reduced Vellacott from $38,952.00 to $25,968.00. Sam can restore any of them, with a reason code.
Duplicate checker: “$117,526.00 that would otherwise have been counted twice. I tell Sam Patel each time.”
Two entries wait for Nadia: Tallis Valley Power & Light, $171,244.80 for 2,184,000 kWh at the GS-4 tariff, over Sam's $100,000 limit; and Harrowgate & Lyle's $42,600.00 of work in progress, an estimate with no order or receipt, over $25,000. Accrued professional fees moved +86.5%, +$76,350, so policy 4.5 needs an explanation; the policy checker has drafted one, with citations. The September package opens for her e-signature once these are done and the accountants have decided the rest.
Drafted by the policy checker: “Most of the rise is new: Ashgrove Engineering Partners’ milestone 2 fee of $64,000.00, earned on acceptance on 29 September.”
The same September close, seen by five of the people who carry it — what their month-end looked like, and what it looks like now.
Eight agents scan, calculate, sweep and check every accrual; the accountant approves each one and only approved entries post.
Runs the overnight plan after the cut-off, talks with the accountant about each proposal in the conversation beside the stack and drafts the month's accrual report.
Reads open order lines, goods and service receipts, contracts with periodic fees or milestones, usage feeds — meters, timesheets, carrier loads — and the close mailbox up to the cut-off, and links each finding to its document and passage.
Computes each amount — quantity × rate, fee × period, progress less billed, usage × tariff, the vendor's estimate — with every input cited, and asks the budget owner one clear question when only a person knows the fact.
Looks for costs that should be there and are not: vendors billed every month and contracts with fees that have nothing proposed, compared against 14 months of invoices.
Applies the close policy: the threshold, the approval route, capital or expense, and a drafted explanation for any account that moved more than 15% and $50,000.
Checks every proposal against the AP inbox, invoices posted after the cut-off, open accruals and the other proposals, keeps watching every 30 minutes until the period locks, and withdraws or reduces a proposal when its invoice arrives.
Posts approved entries to the ERP as reversing journals dated the last day of the period, with the support attached, schedules the reversal for day 1 and explains an ERP error with a fix for a person to approve.
A month later, matches each accrual to the invoice that followed, explains every miss over $1,000 with the invoice cited, measures the bias over six months and proposes method changes by vendor.
Reason codes, e-signature. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any accrual, account or source, or say what to change. Every answer points to its source.
Why are professional fees up 86% on August?
Accrued professional fees (2115) are $164,600.00 against $88,250.00 in August, up $76,350.00. Ashgrove's milestone 2 fee of $64,000.00 is new, earned on acceptance on 29 September; and Harrowgate & Lyle's work in progress rose from $31,400.00 to $42,600.00. Over 15% and $50,000, it needs an explanation under policy 4.5 — the policy checker's draft is waiting on the sign-off.
Which accruals are estimates with no order or receipt?
Five: Harrowgate & Lyle $42,600.00, Kittering Consulting $27,500.00 and Stourbridge Audit Advisory $18,000.00 from vendor emails, Quillfeather Translation $3,480.00, and Telvara Communications $22,815.40 from the completeness sweep. Estimates over $25,000 also need Nadia under policy 4.3.
How close were August's accruals to the invoices?
The 26 largest August accruals were $969,414.65; their invoices came to $984,443.00, so we were under by $15,028.35 (1.55%). The biggest misses were Harrowgate & Lyle, $5,525.00, and Kittering, $5,500.00. Over six months the bias is about 1% low every month. The true-up analyst proposed five method changes.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The thresholds, limits and clocks every accrual is checked against are settings. Every change is logged with the name of the person who made it.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Threshold | $2,500 per vendor and entity | Any amount; items under it are listed, not accrued one by one |
| Staff accountant limit | $100,000 (Inés Varga $50,000) | Set per person |
| Close manager limit | $500,000 | Any amount; above it the controller approves as well |
| Estimate-only second approval | Above $25,000 | Any amount, for accruals with no order and no receipt |
| Movement that needs an explanation | Over 15% and $50,000 per account | Any percentage and amount, against last month |
| Posting and reversal | Last day of the period; reverse on day 1 | Locked by policy |
| Clocks | Cut-off 18:00 · decisions 14:00 · posting by 17:00 | Any time, with reminders to accountants, the close manager and budget owners |
| What the agents may do | Propose; never decide | Locked: the posting agent posts approved entries only; the duplicate checker may withdraw, with the invoice cited |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (APQC cycle-time benchmark via CFO.com, “Metric of the month: cycle time for monthly close” — median 6.4 calendar days, top performers 4.8 or fewer, bottom quartile 10 or more; Adra survey via Journal of Accountancy, May 2017 — 73% in a manually intensive, spreadsheet-driven close; PCAOB AS 2501, Auditing Accounting Estimates, named as context). Kestrel & Vane Group, its entities, vendors, documents and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that prepares the month-end accruals — costs incurred but not yet billed — from the systems that show them, and books them as reversing journal entries. Accrual Automation does this with eight agents that read open POs, goods received not invoiced, contracts, usage and vendor emails, propose each accrual as a draft entry with every input cited, and check it against invoices until the period locks. A staff accountant approves, edits or rejects each one.
The source scanner reads open order lines and goods and service receipts with no invoice up to the cut-off, and the accrual calculator prices what was received at the order or contract rate, citing the receipt and the rate. In the sample close, 214 receipts with no invoice became 31 proposals once receipts were matched to invoices already in.
An independent duplicate checker compares every proposal with the AP inbox, invoices posted after the cut-off, open accruals and the other proposals, and keeps checking every 30 minutes until the period locks. When an invoice arrives it withdraws the proposal, or reduces it if the invoice covers only part, with the invoice cited. The accountant can restore it with a reason code.
Yes. The completeness sweeper compares vendors billed every month and contracts with fees against the month's proposals and invoices. In the sample close it found Telvara Communications, billed for 14 months with nothing for September, and raised it at the six-month average as “Expected, not found” — the search for unrecorded liabilities, before the auditor runs it.
Each accrual carries a support pack: the entry, the calculation with every input linked to its source passage, the agents' steps, the checks, the approver and the reason code. The audit trail records every action in order with chained fingerprints, internal audit has a read-only view, and both export. That is the evidence an auditor asks for when testing how an estimate was made.
Yes. The agents propose and check; they never approve. The accountant decides each entry with a reason code, the close manager second-approves what policy routes to her and e-signs the package, only approved entries post, and the controller approves any change to how a vendor's accrual is calculated.
The posting agent posts approved entries as reversing journals dated the last day of the period, with the support attached, and schedules the reversal for day 1 of the next. If the ERP rejects an entry — in the sample, one needed a WBS element — it explains the error and proposes a fix for a person to approve.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your close policy, chart of accounts, close calendar and a past month of sources and invoices — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. A guided setup connects the ERP and sources, reads the close policy and runs a dry run on last month; in the sample it would have proposed 61 of 63 booked accruals and found 4 that were not booked, without posting anything.
Every balance tied to its support, and every difference explained before anyone signs.
1-min demoFlux AnalysisEvery variance explained to within 5%, with cited drivers, before the board sees it.
1-min demoIntercompany ReconciliationEvery intercompany difference explained and trued up at source, with no top-side plug.
1-min demoWe'll run Accrual Automation on your own last close — your open orders, receipts, contracts and the invoices that followed.