Flagship vision · in development
Accruals Pulse
Records what should happen, not just what happened.
A working design for turning PO and non-PO service commitments into explainable, reviewable accruals. In development, shaped with finance teams who know the close.
Working product view
Review the estimate, its evidence and the account mapping together
September close · Accrual review
3 commitments need attention
| PO line | Vendor | Total | Billed | Open | Estimate | Accrual | Confidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 450123-1 | PG&E | $48,000 | $40,000 | $8,000 | $2,000 | $6,000 | 0.88 | Pending review |
| 450456-1 | DLA Piper | $96,000 | $72,000 | $24,000 | $8,000 | $16,000 | 0.92 | Needs changes |
| 450789-2 | Atlassian | $36,000 | $30,000 | $6,000 | $3,000 | $3,000 | 0.85 | Approved |
Evidence · 450123-1
PG&E service accrual
Prior invoice pattern
Three monthly invoices support the estimate.
Suggested task
Request current-period usage from the owner.
Account mapping
Expense account
6100 · Utilities Expense
Accrual account
2210 · Utilities Accruals
The operating loop
From open commitment to posted, explainable accrual
Find the obligation
Bring PO lines and non-PO service purchases into one review flow, assigned by requestor, buyer, cost centre, company, project or account.
Build an estimate
Use the commitment, service period, invoice history and vendor pattern to propose an editable accrual rather than starting from a blank spreadsheet.
Show confidence and evidence
Every estimate carries its likelihood, supporting history and evidence, so finance knows which lines need judgement.
Review and approve
Track pending, changed, waived, approved and posted states with comments and attachments attached to the PO line.
Automate the follow-up
Create one-time or recurring requests for the missing signal — such as a meter reading — and direct them to the responsible person.
Learn from the actual
Compare prior estimates with the invoices that later arrived, preserve the variance, and improve the estimating logic for the next period.
The idea
A general ledger is very good at recording what has been documented. It is much weaker at recording what has been committed. Between the two sits the work most finance teams spend their close on: deciding what the business owes for a period when the paperwork proving it has not arrived yet.
So accruals get reconstructed. Someone reviews open purchase orders, asks operations what was delivered, looks at what last month looked like, and posts an estimate with a note to reverse it. The estimate is often good. But it is built outside the ledger, from memory and judgement, under time pressure, every single period — and its basis disappears the moment the journal is posted.
Accruals Pulse starts from the other end. The signals that an obligation exists are already in the ERP: an approved commitment, a receipt, a milestone, a contract term. If those signals drive the accrual as they occur, the period does not need to be reconstructed — it needs to be reviewed.
Principles we are designing to
Commitment is the event
An approved purchase order, a signed contract, a confirmed delivery — each is a point where an obligation becomes real. That is the moment the ledger should learn about it, not the moment an invoice arrives.
Estimates carry their basis
Every accrued amount should be able to answer where it came from: which commitment, which measure of delivery, which assumption. An accrual you cannot explain is a number you cannot defend.
Reversal is automatic, not remembered
When the actual arrives, the estimate stands down against it and the difference is visible. Nobody should be maintaining a list of accruals to reverse next period.
Close becomes a review
If obligations are recorded as they occur, period end stops being a reconstruction exercise and becomes a review of what the system already knows.
Being honest about status
Accruals Pulse is in development. The logic above reflects the supplied product design, but it is not yet presented as a finished or purchasable product. Approval Nudge remains the module available today.
Waitlist
Follow Accruals Pulse as it takes shape
There is nothing to sell yet. Join if you want to follow the build, or to argue with how we are framing the problem.