Accrual
An accrual recognizes an expense in the period when it was incurred even if the invoice has not arrived. Usage-based AI services commonly create metered-but-uninvoiced balances at month-end.
A defensible accrual uses complete usage through the cutoff and reverses or reconciles when the invoice posts.
Related terms
- Agent spend attribution
- Agent FinOps vs. TokenOps
- Settlement vs. billing vs. attribution
- System of record for AI labor
- Agent FinOps
- AI labor
- Spend under management
- Attribution readiness
- Cost per outcome
- AI spend assessment
- Unattributed spend
- Agent inventory
- Chargeback in an AI context
- Zero-Access assessment
- FOCUS
- BilledCost
- EffectiveCost
- ChargeCategory
- ChargePeriod
- ServiceCategory
- Provider, Publisher, ServiceProvider, and HostProvider
- Contract Commitment dataset
- Invoice Detail dataset
- Virtual currency and token columns
- Journal entry
- Suspense account
- Chargeback vs. showback
- Subledger
- Tie-out and reconciliation
- Trial balance
- Dimensions and worktags
- OASA specification
- The Missing Ledger