# 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.

Section: Cash and accrual basis · Canonical: https://intubu.intuitivecapital-dai.com/docs/cash-vs-accrual

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.