Cash basis and accrual basis

Accrual recognises revenue when earned and expenses when incurred; cash recognises them when money moves. Every financial report can run either way.

The two bases answer different questions.

Accrual basis records revenue when you earn it and expenses when you incur them, regardless of when money moves. It is what GAAP requires, what lenders expect, and what tells you whether the business is actually profitable.

Cash basis records revenue when you collect it and expenses when you pay them. It is what many small businesses file taxes on, and it tells you what actually happened to your bank balance.

How to switch: every report with a basis control has an Accrual/Cash toggle at the top. The setting is per-report-run, not a company-wide mode, so you can look at both without changing anything.

How it works underneath: IntuBu always records on the accrual basis. Cash-basis figures are derived by walking each payment application back to the document it settled, then re-recognising the revenue or expense on the payment date. Nothing is stored twice, so the two views can never disagree about the underlying facts.