Stop treating accruals like a one-off win. Your accounting and finance teams are under pressure to show automation progress. That’s why accruals are so often pitched as a quick win. But treating them as a standalone use case misses the point and exposes a bigger problem.
Accruals, provisions and reclassifications aren’t one-time events. They’re high-frequency, rule-based recurring entries that repeat across entities, geographies and cost centers every single period. They span prepaid expenses, amortization, accounts payable and other liabilities, which are anchored in well-defined accrual calculations that should be automated, but usually aren’t.
This leads to a persistent blind spot in the close process. These entries are built in spreadsheets, posted late and corrected manually. They delay the financial close, inflate manual effort and create discrepancies in the general ledger. Worse, they introduce audit risk because their logic is buried in offline models instead of being visible in audit trails or supported by internal controls.
For example, one biotech company learned this the hard way. They believed their accruals process was “under control.” But after period-end, they discovered 12 manual journal entries sitting unposted, missed entirely due to email delays and Excel-based tracking. Rework was immediate. Compliance documentation had to be recreated. Financial reporting timelines slipped. That wasn’t just a task management issue. It was a systemic orchestration gap across their record-to-report (R2R) function. It’s a cautionary case study in the risks of fragmented workflows.
Follow the delay to its source
The lag in journal entry processing doesn’t start in SAP. It starts upstream, where data entry, approval workflows and logic sit outside the ERP system. Spreadsheets act as de facto accounting software. Preparers spend valuable time extracting reports from CRM or HR platforms, performing manual calculations and emailing supporting documents for approval. It’s a patchwork of high-volume manual processes with no centralized audit trail.
These delays trigger a domino effect. Accruals post late. ERP batch jobs stall. Intercompany eliminations fall out of sync. Financial dashboards show estimates rather than actuals. Forecasting errors are baked in. The journal entry process breaks — not because people aren’t working, but because task-based “automation” tools weren’t designed to handle the end-to-end orchestration needed to optimize journal flows.
The biotech team saw this firsthand. Their forecast included accrual data expected to reverse at the start of the period. But because journals were posted late, those reversals didn’t happen. Their forecasting model — used for real-time decision-making — was wrong by millions. Not because of logic errors, but because journal entry management was decoupled from readiness and timing. Automating journal entries would’ve resolved the issue entirely.
Expose the hidden chain reaction
Every delayed journal entry carries dependencies that most accounting systems don’t track:
- Accrual reversals that miss their window
- Intercompany balancing that doesn’t tie out
- Tax provisions based on outdated numbers
- Forecast adjustments that rely on faulty inputs
- Audit-ready documentation that’s reconstructed manually
This isn’t a process breakdown. It’s a dependency breakdown. The financial close isn’t slowed by bottlenecks. It’s distorted by them. Without orchestration, these hidden connections between recurring entries remain invisible until they affect forecasting accuracy, validation and audit readiness.
These chain reactions aren’t rare. They’re built into accrual accounting. When journal entries still depend on manual intervention, the close becomes a constant exercise in fixing timing mismatches, correcting misclassified debits and reconciling month-end discrepancies after the fact. That’s not sustainable, especially for finance and accounting teams managing thousands of recurring entries across dozens of entities.
The function of financial operations is not just to get journals approved but to deliver accurate, real-time financial data to decision-makers. Automating accruals and journal creation helps streamline not only period-end processes but the entire financial systems infrastructure that supports them.
Automate the lifecycle instead of the task
Unlike other accrual automation solutions that your teams have to tape together with manual programs, Finance Automation by Redwood doesn’t treat accruals as one-off, repetitive tasks or templates to track. It automates the full lifecycle — journal creation, approval, validation and posting — without relying on spreadsheets, manual data entry or disconnected approval workflows.
With Finance Automation’s cloud-based accrual automation software:
- Business logic is codified once and reused across the enterprise
- Data is pulled directly from upstream systems like SAP, CRM or payroll — no copying, no Excel
- Accrual automation runs as soon as the prerequisite data is available
- Approval workflows adapt dynamically based on the company code, amount or entity
- Journals post to SAP automatically once data readiness, controls and approvals are satisfied
- Reversals are scheduled and executed as part of the same orchestration
This is how finance teams streamline workflows, optimize resource use and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks that dominate the close process. Automating journal entries from creation through posting creates a faster close, frees your teams from low-value data handling and enables cleaner financial reporting.
This isn’t just another close or point solution. It’s an automation platform built to unify fragmented financial systems, enhance functionality across ERP systems and support the full R2R cycle.
Organizations like Forvia use Finance Automation to post over 32,000 journal entries monthly, including complex, high-risk accruals. They’ve significantly reduced manual accrual bottlenecks, accelerated their month-end close and shifted their accounting teams’ workload toward higher-value analysis.
Their ERP systems are no longer overrun by late journals. Their dashboards reflect actuals instead of outdated placeholders. And their close process runs with real-time accuracy, built-in audit trails and no manual workarounds. This is what a modern, optimized journal entry automation process looks like.
Redefine accruals as a system dependency
When finance leaders evaluate automation use cases, they often start with journal entries and stop at posting. But the real opportunity isn’t in task acceleration. It’s in orchestration. Accruals are not a “win” to check off. They’re a litmus test for system maturity.
Every recurring journal that still requires manual intervention is a gap in your finance automation strategy. These gaps carry real costs, such as missed deadlines, audit rework, forecast variances and a workload that grows faster than headcount. Especially in financial services and other high-volume environments, these manual tasks steal valuable time from your most experienced preparers and delay strategic decision-making.
That’s why automating journal entries and automating accruals are a strategic imperative instead of a tactical fix. It’s how you reclaim time, reduce the risk of errors and optimize financial data quality for downstream planning and compliance. It’s how you shift financial operations from time-consuming reconciliation to forward-looking control.
As a CFO, your role is evolving from managing accounting processes to leading enterprise-wide transformation. That shift can’t happen if financial close workflows are still governed by spreadsheets and manual effort across your organization. Explore the journal gap hidden in your accrual workflows and learn how CFOs like you are streamlining R2R processes, automating accrual workflows and enabling faster close cycles with Finance Automation.
Explore the journal gap hidden in your accrual workflows and learn how CFOs like you are streamlining R2R processes, automating accrual workflows and enabling faster close cycles with Finance Automation.