Run the warranty reserve and accrual

If you accrue a reserve for warranty costs instead of expensing them as they happen, the Warranty reserve page is where you read the balance, run each month's accrual, and correct it with a true-up when your accountant wants a different number.

Before you begin

• Accrue a reserve needs to be turned on, in the Warranty cost accounting choice on Settings → Repairs & Warranty → General's Accounting card. See Set the accounting options. If it's off, this page still opens, but with a banner saying so and nothing to run.
• At least one warranty policy needs its own accrual rate — a percentage of revenue or a fixed amount per unit sold — set on its Reserve fields, or the accrual has nothing to book for that policy.
• Warranty expense and Warranty reserve need to be mapped to GL accounts in Accounting → Settings → Nominal Code Mappings. Utilisation is read from your ledger, so until they're mapped, a yellow banner says so with a Map accounts button, and Utilisation and Suggested rate read — (the Utilisation card reads Map the warranty accounts).
• Running an accrual or posting a true-up needs the Manage repair settings permission.

Read the reserve

1. Go to Orders → Repairs → List, then open the Warranty reserve tab at the top of the page.

2. Set the From and To dates — the report defaults to this calendar year to today.

3. Read the By warranty policy table, one row per policy that accrues a reserve, plus a totals row when there's more than one:

   Column	What it shows
   Accrual rate	The policy's own rate — a percentage of net revenue, or a fixed amount per unit sold.
   Opening	The reserve balance at the start of the date range.
   Accruals	Monthly provisions booked in the range.
   True-ups	Manual adjustments posted in the range.
   Utilisation	Warranty repair costs (parts, labour, vendor fees, replacements) drawn from the reserve.
   Recoveries	Money suppliers paid back on recovery claims, credited back to the reserve.
   Closing	Opening + Accruals + True-ups − Utilisation + Recoveries.
   Months of cover	Closing balance ÷ the average monthly warranty cost over the trailing 12 months.
   Suggested rate	Trailing 12-month warranty cost ÷ revenue for the policy — what actually happened, to compare against the rate you accrue.

   Months of cover reads — for a policy with no warranty repair costs in the trailing 12 months, and Suggested rate reads — when the policy has no sales revenue to divide by. When the closing balance drops below zero, Months of cover reads Overdrawn in red instead of a number.

4. Below it, Accrual history lists every posted accrual and true-up, with its month, type, policy, the revenue or unit basis it was computed on, the amount, and a View journal link to the posted entry. A row still Posting… hasn't reached the ledger yet — hover it for why.

Run the monthly accrual

1. Click Run accrual.
2. Choose the Month. You can only accrue a month that has already started — picking a future one is refused.
3. Click Run accrual in the dialog. It books every accruing policy's provision for that month as a background job you can follow in the job tray; see Follow background jobs.
4. Running the same month again is always safe: a policy already accrued for that month is skipped, never booked twice.

Post a true-up

Use a true-up when your accountant wants the reserve at a specific balance that the automatic monthly accrual doesn't land on.

1. Click Post true-up.
2. Choose the Month and enter the Amount — a positive amount adds to the reserve, a negative amount releases it. As you type, the blue hint previews the result, for example "After this true-up, the reserve would close at $1,316.33 (now $816.33) — about 25.6 months of warranty cost at the trailing 12-month pace." A release that would take the reserve below zero says it would be overdrawn.
3. Optionally choose a Policy. Left blank, the field reads All policies and the true-up adjusts the whole reserve rather than one policy's share of it; pick a policy and the hint previews that policy's balance instead.
4. Click Post true-up, then confirm. The confirmation names the amount, the direction (added to or released from the reserve) and the month, and tells you it posts a journal to your ledger.

A second true-up for the same month and policy adds to the first instead of creating a separate row, and its journal is reposted with the new total. If two people post a true-up for the same month and policy at once, SKU.io applies them one after the other so neither is lost.

If something doesn't go through

What you'll see	Why
"A month can only be accrued once it has started."	You picked a future month for Run accrual.
Run accrual or Post true-up stays disabled	You don't have the Manage repair settings permission, or reserve accounting is off — hover the button for the reason.
"Enter the true-up amount." / "Enter a non-zero amount."	Post true-up needs a non-zero amount before it will submit.
An error banner with Retry, every card reading — with Couldn't load under it, and "The policy balances couldn't be loaded." / "The accrual history couldn't be loaded." in the tables	The report didn't load (for example, a dropped connection). Nothing is shown as zero in the meantime; click any Retry to load it again.

Next steps

• How repair costs reach the ledger — which account a repair cost posts to, and how the reserve fits into that.
• Read repair dashboards and reports — the Warranty cost report reconciles your warranty spend against the GL.
• Review the ledger — read the debits and credits behind a posted accrual or true-up.

Video transcript

To review your repair provision, expand Orders, then Repairs, then List in the sidebar. Open the Warranty reserve tab at the top of the page. It shows the money set aside to cover future claims. The cards at the top total the reserve, starting from its Opening balance. By warranty policy breaks that figure into one row per policy. Each row adds accruals, true-ups and recoveries, then subtracts Utilisation for repairs. Closing is what's left in the reserve today. Months of cover and Suggested rate show whether your rate keeps up with repair costs. Next, scroll down to the Accrual history, just below the policy table. It lists each monthly posting and true-up in order. Each row links to its journal entry on the ledger. To book the provision, scroll back up and click Run accrual. In the dialog that opens, click the Month list. Choose the period to accrue, usually the one that just ended. Then click Run accrual at the bottom of the dialog. SKU.io books it as a background job you can follow in the job tray. A policy already accrued for that month is skipped, never charged twice. To set the balance your accountant wants, click Post true-up. Pick the month if it isn't this one, then enter the amount. A positive figure adds to the reserve, and a negative figure releases money. As you type, the blue hint previews the new closing balance. Left blank, Policy reads All policies and adjusts the whole reserve. Click Post true-up at the bottom of the dialog. A prompt repeats the amount, its direction and the month. Click Post true-up again to confirm the posting. The new entry joins the Accrual history below, alongside the monthly accruals.