Traditionally, accounting is a batch process culminating in the "Month-End Close"—a stressful week of spreadsheets and manual adjustments. "Continuous Accounting" is an architectural paradigm where the ledger is always in a "Soft Close" state. By automating accruals and reconciliation in real-time, the "Close" becomes a reporting timestamp, not a workflow event.
Automating Accruals
The Old Way: Wait for the $10,000 AWS invoice on Day 30, then book the expense. P&L looks great for 29 days, then crashes.
The Modern Way: The system estimates daily usage (via API) and books a daily journal entry: Debit: Hosting Expense | Credit: Accrued Liabilities. When the actual invoice arrives, the system reverses the accruals and books the final invoice. This smooths the P&L curve.
The Daily Soft Close
The system runs a nightly "Integrity Check" job:
Verify Assets = Liabilities + Equity.
Verify Bank_Balance == Internal_Ledger_Balance (Recon).
Verify Intercompany_Net == 0.
If these pass, the day is "Closed." If not, alerts fire immediately. This prevents errors from compounding over 30 days.
