Auto-Accruals & SaaS Metrics

Automate recurring adjusting journal entries and monitor your business health with real-time SaaS metrics -- all from your existing accounting data.

Overview

If your business uses accrual accounting, you know the routine: every month you create adjusting entries for prepaid expenses, deferred revenue, and accrued liabilities. Miss one and your financial statements are wrong. Forget to reverse one and you double-count.

Kantivo's Auto-Accruals feature eliminates this manual work. Define a schedule once -- source account, target account, total amount, and number of periods -- and Kantivo creates the journal entries automatically, on schedule, with a full audit trail.

New Feature: Auto-Accruals is available from the sidebar under Accountant Tools. SaaS Metrics appear on your main dashboard automatically when subscription data is present.

Four Schedule Types

Kantivo supports four types of accrual schedules, covering the most common adjusting entry scenarios:

Type	What It Does	Example
Prepaid Expense	Converts a prepaid asset into monthly expenses as the benefit period elapses	$12,000 annual insurance -- $1,000/month over 12 periods
Deferred Revenue	Moves revenue from a liability account to income as you deliver services over time	$6,000 upfront annual subscription -- $500/month earned
Accrued Expense	Records expenses in the period they are incurred, even when payment has not been made	$3,000 monthly rent billed quarterly -- monthly expense accrual
Accrued Revenue	Recognizes revenue earned but not yet invoiced	$5,000/month consulting invoiced quarterly -- monthly accrual

Creating a Schedule

Navigate to Auto-Accruals from the sidebar
Click New Schedule
Select the schedule type (prepaid expense, deferred revenue, accrued expense, or accrued revenue)
Enter a name for the schedule (e.g., "2026 Insurance Amortization")
Select the source account (where the amount currently sits)
Select the target account (where periodic amounts move to)
Enter the total amount and number of periods
Set the start date and frequency (monthly or quarterly)
Kantivo calculates the per-period amount automatically
Click Save

Pro Tip: The form labels change based on the schedule type you select. For prepaid expenses, the source is labeled "Asset Account" and the target is "Expense Account." For deferred revenue, the source is "Liability Account" and the target is "Revenue Account." This helps prevent mapping mistakes.

Posting Entries

Each schedule tracks its progress with a visual progress bar showing how many periods have been posted out of the total.

How Entries Are Created

Each posting creates a proper double-entry journal entry in your books
The entry debits the target account and credits the source account (or vice versa, depending on type)
Every entry is tagged with a reference like ACCR-15-3 (schedule ID 15, period 3)
The schedule advances automatically: next accrual date updates, periods posted increments

Posting a Single Entry

Click the Post button on any active schedule card to post the next pending entry for that schedule.

Preview & Batch Post

The Pending tab shows all entries that are due but have not been posted yet. This gives you a complete picture of upcoming accruals across all schedules.

What You See

Schedule name and type
Due date for the entry
Source and target accounts
Amount to be posted

Batch Posting

Click Post All Pending to post every due entry at once. This is ideal for month-end close when you want to process all accruals in a single action. Each entry creates its own journal entry with a unique reference number.

Note: Review the pending entries before batch posting. Once posted, entries appear in your journal and affect your financial statements immediately.

Pause & Resume

You can pause any schedule without losing progress. When a schedule is paused:

No new entries appear in the Pending tab
The schedule retains its current position (e.g., 4 of 12 periods posted)
Click Resume to reactivate and pick up exactly where you left off

This is useful when circumstances change temporarily -- for example, a service contract is suspended for a month.

One-Click Reversals

Made a mistake? Click Reverse on any schedule to reverse the most recently posted entry. Kantivo creates a reversing journal entry and adjusts the schedule back by one period.

The reversal creates a new journal entry that exactly offsets the original
The schedule's period count decrements by one
The next accrual date adjusts accordingly

Posting History

Click History on any schedule card to see a complete log of every entry posted for that schedule. The history shows:

Transaction date
Reference number (e.g., ACCR-15-3)
Amount
Description

This provides a full audit trail for each accrual schedule, useful during year-end review or when your accountant has questions.

SaaS Metrics Dashboard Widget

For subscription and service businesses, Kantivo adds a real-time metrics widget directly on your main dashboard. The numbers come from your existing accounting data -- no extra tools or integrations needed.

What You See

The widget displays six key metrics in a compact card layout:

MRR -- Monthly Recurring Revenue
ARR -- Annual Recurring Revenue
Burn Rate -- Monthly expense total
Net Burn -- Revenue minus expenses (positive means profitable)
Runway -- Months of cash remaining at current burn rate
Churn -- Subscription cancellation rate

Metric Definitions

Metric	How It Is Calculated
MRR	Sum of all active subscription amounts, normalized to monthly. Annual plans are divided by 12, quarterly by 3.
ARR	MRR multiplied by 12. Represents the annualized revenue run rate.
Burn Rate	Total expenses from the trailing 30 days across all expense accounts.
Net Burn	Monthly revenue minus monthly expenses. Positive values are shown in green (revenue exceeds expenses).
Runway	Current cash balance divided by monthly net burn. Shows how many months of operations remain. Color-coded: green (18+ months), yellow (6-18 months), red (under 6 months).
Churn	Percentage of subscriptions cancelled in the trailing 30 days relative to total active subscriptions.

Showing and Hiding the Widget

The SaaS Metrics widget appears automatically when your books contain subscription data. You can toggle it on or off:

Click the toggle button on the widget header to hide it
Your preference is saved locally and persists across sessions
The widget reappears if you click the toggle again from the dashboard

Pro Tip: The metrics widget pulls from your live accounting data. Keep your subscription records up to date for the most accurate readings. If MRR shows zero, verify that you have active subscriptions recorded in the system.

Note: SaaS metrics are informational and calculated from your book data. They are not audited figures. Use them for internal decision-making and planning.