Accrue what you expect, and let the real invoice settle the difference.

Reverse on day one and let the invoice land.

The answers that rank today explain the reversing entry well. AccountingTools walks an 18,000 accrual through a reversal and an invoice for exactly 18,000, and a University of Cambridge close procedure does the same with a 1,500 repair. In both, the invoice matches the accrual, so the next month nets to zero. Real invoices rarely match, and some do not arrive at all. That is the part this article works through.

The difference lands in November because an accrual is an estimate. Under IAS 8, as summarised by IAS Plus, a change in an accounting estimate is accounted for prospectively, in the current period, and the earlier period is not restated. The exception is an estimate that ignored something you already knew at close, such as an invoice sitting in someone’s inbox. That is an error, not a new estimate.

Five accruals, one November.

Take an example SaaS company closing October 2026 in US dollars. It books five accruals on 31 October, all set to reverse on 1 November. Here is what November looks like once the invoices come in, or do not.

The first three rows are the system working as designed. The legal estimate was 600 low and the hosting estimate 250 high, and both differences show up in November, where they belong.

The last two rows are the trouble. The tax adviser finished the study in October but had not billed by the end of November, so the reversal leaves a 7,500 credit sitting in November professional fees. The agency invoice arrived on 2 November, while October was still open, and was entered with its 28 October date. October then carries the cost twice, once as the accrual and once as the invoice, and November gives 6,000 back.

Over the two months the totals are close, which is why this goes unnoticed. But November expenses were understated by 13,500, and anyone reading the November flux would see professional fees fall for no reason.

Follow up every accrual before you close the next month.

The fix is a short list, built during each close: every accrual reversed at the start of the month, the invoice that settled it, and the difference. Three rules keep it clean.

First, an accrual with no invoice by month end is accrued again if the cost is still owed. The Cambridge procedure says the same: if the invoice is still not received, repeat the accrual. Second, when an invoice for the month arrives before that month closes, enter the invoice and take the accrual out of that month, by cancelling it if it has not posted or reversing it inside the month if it has, so only one of them reaches the books. Third, set a threshold for differences worth a look, such as 10 percent or 1,000. A pattern of large differences on the same supplier means the estimating method needs work, not the entries.

Accrual follow-up, November 2026
(every accrual reversed on 1 November)

Accrual             Accrued  Invoice  Diff   Action
Legal counsel        12,000   12,600   600   none, 5% over
Cloud hosting        18,400   18,150  (250)  none
Recruiter             9,000    9,000     0   none
Tax adviser           7,500        -     -   accrue again
                                             at 30 Nov
Marketing agency      6,000    6,000     -   accrual taken
                                             out of October,
                                             the invoice
                                             was already in

Open October accruals left in accrued
liabilities after 1 November:          0

Differences above 10% or 1,000:  none

One quick test backs the list up. After the reversals post on 1 November, the October accruals should leave nothing behind in accrued liabilities. A balance left over means an accrual was not reversed, and the invoice will be counted twice.

How Rivane handles accruals today.

In Rivane an accrual is its own record with an approval path, not a free journal. It posts to the general ledger only after review, and it can reverse on schedule without anyone keying the opposite entry.

# Rivane accruals, as built.

accounts      an expense account and an accrued
              liability account, both required and
              checked against the chart of accounts
lifecycle     draft, submitted for review, approved
              with the reviewer recorded, posted,
              reversed; a rejected review goes back
              to draft
posting       Dr expense, Cr accrued liability, dated
              the last day of the accrual month
reversal      auto-reverse is on by default and books
              the reversal on the first day of the
              next month; switch it off and the
              accrual stays posted until reversed
daily job     reverses every posted auto-reverse
              accrual whose date has arrived; one
              that falls in a locked period is
              skipped and picked up on a later run,
              never forced into the locked month
retries       each accrual has one fixed posting ID,
              so a retried post cannot book it twice
cancel        allowed until the accrual is posted;
              after that, the only way out is a
              reversal

The limits worth knowing. An accrual is not yet linked to the vendor bill that settles it, so the follow-up list above is built from the expense account detail rather than produced for you. Rivane records who reviewed an accrual, but it does not yet stop the person who prepared it from approving it, so keep that rule in your own close process. Each accrual is booked in a single currency.

The short version.

Accrue your best estimate, reverse it on the first day of the next month, and enter the invoice as normal. The difference between the two belongs to the month the invoice arrives. Before that month closes, check that every reversed accrual met its invoice, accrue again the ones that did not, and take out any accrual whose invoice beat the close. In the example, that check turned a November of minus 13,150 into an honest 350.

To see how Rivane schedules accruals next to prepaid expenses, read the Rivane prepaid and accrual accounting overview.

Sources

• IAS Plus (Deloitte), summary of IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors. Changes in accounting estimates are accounted for prospectively, in the current year, future years or both, and comparatives are not restated; material prior period errors are corrected by restatement.
• AccountingTools, Reversing entries, 16 May 2026. Read as a current answer: an 18,000 accrual reversed on the first day of the next month and offset by an invoice for exactly 18,000, so the next month shows no net expense.
• University of Cambridge, GL Detailed Procedure, Appendix A: Expenditure accruals, version 2.0, May 2025. A 1,500 repair accrued in July, reversed automatically on 1 August and matched by a 1,500 invoice; if the invoice has still not arrived, the accrual is repeated in August.

A note on how this was researched. The Cambridge procedure was downloaded and all three pages read directly. The AccountingTools article and the IAS Plus summary were read in full. The company, the suppliers and every amount are examples. The Rivane section describes the product as built today, checked against the accruals code rather than marketing copy. This is not accounting advice for your specific case.

On embedded social posts: we looked for public posts from standard setters or practitioners on accrual follow-up and found none we could verify as current and relevant, so this article uses ordinary citations instead.