One of the speakers at the DataCert conference, J. L. Novak, General Counsel of AOL Paid Services, devoted a few impassioned minutes to explaining why vendor accruals and their accuracy are important to him. Evidently, if he misses an accrual, he is forced to walk through the CFO’s hot coals, and this he does not like!
His advice to peers: make sure your accrual figures are pretty close to the actual amount of the bills that arrive later and therefore push your law firms to save you from the coals (See my post of Oct.1, 2006: keep executives and CFO advised; Aug. 24, 2005: accruals; Sept. 17, 2005 #4: accruals; Dec. 21, 2008: should your produce monthly accrual figures?; March 11, 2009: Calgon GC possibly fired for blowing a big accrual; and June 1, 2009: US legal departments have to report incurred but unpaid legal fees.).