Accruals in RecHound

The list you're building (the Pending Accrualspanel) stays on screen the whole time you're in Step 1, whichever view you're working from.

Nominate your accruals accounts

Go to Settings → Accruals and use Nominate your accruals accounts to choose which balance sheet accounts use accruals. You can nominate as many as you need, and each one gets its own accruals list for each period.

Add recurring accrual schedules (optional)

For costs you accrue every month or quarter, go to Settings → Accruals → Accrual Schedule and click Add Accrual. Each schedule is tied to one accrual account, runs monthly or quarterly, and can carry a contact and tracking. Scheduled accruals appear in every period's list automatically until the schedule ends.

You can also create a schedule on the fly: switch a new accrual to Recurring in the Add Accrual form.

Open the work paper for your accruals account and click View Accruals. Step 1 gives you three views to build this period's list from: P&L, Prior Accruals and Schedule.

P&L view: find what's missing

The P&L view pulls your live Xero P&L. Compare this period against last period, a 3- or 6-period average, or several periods side by side. A variance column shows where a bill hasn't landed yet, and the Current + Pending Accrualscolumn previews the P&L with your pending accruals included. You can filter the view by tracking category.

Accrue from the line: click Add Accrual(the + icon) at the end of any P&L line. The Add Accrual form opens with the Offset Account already set to that line's account. Enter the amount, name, contact and any notes, and save.

Your P&L layout and comparison preferences are saved per browser, not per user account, so they won't follow you to another browser or device.

Prior Accruals view: roll forward what you accrued last time

The Prior Accruals view lists accruals from earlier periods for this account. It shows the last period by default, and Show last goes back up to 12 periods.

For each prior accrual you can see the period, name, amount, contact, tracking, and the notes and attachments from last period. These are read-only here, so the prior period's record stays intact.

• Re-accrue a single line: the Add Accrual form opens pre-filled with the name, account, amount, contact, tracking and notes. Adjust whatever has changed and save. Attachments are carried forward too.
• Re-accrue in bulk: tick several rows and add them together. You can edit the amounts for each one in a single dialog before adding.
• Recommended: Skip. If a recurring accrual's supplier has already billed the period in Xero, and the bills cover what you'd otherwise accrue, RecHound flags the line with Recommended: Skip. One click skips this period's scheduled accrual, so the expense doesn't get double-counted.

Schedule view: your recurring accruals for the period

The Schedule view lists every recurring accrual due this period, per your active schedules: name, offset account, contact, amount, frequency and end date.

• Scheduled accruals are added to the Pending Accruals list automatically. There's nothing to key in.
• Skip this period removes one from this period only. The schedule itself is untouched, and you can undo the skip at any time.
• Items already posted or drafted to Xero show their status instead.
• Edit schedule jumps to Settings → Accruals in a new tab.

The Pending Accruals list and the Add Accrual form

Every item in the Pending Accruals list is tagged with where it came from:

Click any item to edit it. The Add / Edit Accrual form covers:

• Name, Amount, Offset Account (the accrual account is fixed to the work paper's account), Contact and tracking.
• Notes and attachments (e.g. the quote, the supplier email, the timesheet) on every accrual. These travel with the accrual into its support.
• One-off / Recurring: switch a new accrual to Recurring to create a monthly or quarterly schedule without leaving the workflow.
• Duplicate check: if the new accrual looks like one already in your list (same account or contact and a similar amount), RecHound asks before adding it. You can view the existing one or create it anyway.

Finalise is where you check the list before anything goes to Xero.

• Check the list. Review every accrual for this period in one place.
• Balance check. Under the list, RecHound checks the accruals total against the account balance and shows whether they match.
• Snapshot to Support. One click saves the list as a support schedule on the work paper. It then appears in the Audit Report and Excel export.
• Posted Journals / Drafted Journals. See what has already gone to Xero for this account. If you posted a draft directly in Xero, open it from Drafted Journals and click Mark as posted.
• When you're happy, click Create Journal to move on to Post.

Once the work paper moves on to review, the accruals record becomes read-only, so the audit trail can't drift.

RecHound builds the accrual journal and its reversing journal for you, dated correctly, with any tracking carried through from your accruals.

• Post both journals straight to Xero, or save them as drafts to post later.
• Snapshot to Support is available here too, so the support on the work paper matches what you posted.

Nothing goes to Xero until you post or draft the journal in this step.