I just got out of college and am learning the real world just wanted to say my peace... one of my supervisor has constantly told me to accrue the expense now for some reason the use of the word accrue really bugs me there.  I don't know accounting that well but I just think she is being fancy with accounting terminology.  i looked up the word accrue in the dictionary and found out that it is an intransitive verb. So from that I take it that expenses & revenue can accrue by themselves but people can't accrue expenses & revenue. Looking in accounting text.. i never found anywere that says to accrue an expense. i have seen commments like record an accrual or record an accrued expense I know i am being anal, but I was just curious. just wanted to know what anyone else thinks about this. please reply via email kingc...@earth_link_.net thanks Cong

just wanted to say my peace... one of my supervisor has constantly told me to accrue the expense now for some reason the use of the word accrue really bugs me there.  I don't know accounting that well but I just think she is being fancy with accounting terminology.  i looked up the word accrue in the dictionary and found out that it is an intransitive verb. So from that I take it that expenses & revenue can accrue by themselves but people can't accrue expenses & revenue. Looking in accounting text.. i never found anywere that says to accrue an expense. i have seen commments like record an accrual or record an accrued expense I know i am being anal, but I was just curious. Your supervisor's terminology may not (or may) be technically correct, but in my experience accrue is used both transitively and intransitively by most accountants.  I might suggest that we tend to use it transitively at month-end, perhaps as a shortcut for the longer _expression_s that you prefer, and intransitively at other times.

Accrue is for example: The subsidiary ledger posted an entry that should have been posted this month into next month. Accrue this entry to the current month to reverse the following month producing a net of -0- in the following month and recognizing the revenue or expense as it should have been under the matching principle. This is basic stuff here. Now you can also Accrue for an expense that has not occurred yet but it is very likely that it will happen by the end of the year. Example: Estimated franchise or property taxes are Accrued every month to a liability account that will take the hit when the tax bill is actually paid. Any difference between the balance in the liability account and the amount to be paid goes directly to the bottom line on the P & L. I hope this clears up the lingo problem. Every field has it's lingo. David Hardaway