Basis
In accounting, basis means cash or accrual.
- Layer
- Lexicon
- Defined in
- Lexicon
- Components
- 1
Authority
This definition follows CON 8, Ch. 4, App. A.
Every citation in this system, with the text we read and the date we checked it, is in US GAAP and where these rules come from.
The lessons that teach this
Accounting, 0 to 1 — a free course taught end to end on one month of one company, with the spreadsheet exercises to work it yourself.
- 01Why the books existBookkeeping is not record-keeping for its own sake. It is a system built so that an error announces itself and every figure traces back to an event.7 min
- 08Cash, accrual and cut-offCash accounting records when money moves. Accrual records when value moves. Every hard question in the rest of the course lives in the gap between the two.9 min
Basis, in use
Quoted from the 17 documents that use the word — what it does to an interface, in the spec's own sentence.
The UI rule: the basis toggle is a first-class, always-visible control on every statement, not a setting buried in a menu.
The statement header carries the full context: entity, statement type, resolved period, basis (cash/accrual), presentation currency, and generation timestamp.
AI suggestions with a visible basis — "coded to Software because the last 6 charges from this vendor were", not an opaque confidence score.
For founders
The same idea written for a founder: what it costs a startup that ignores it, and what to do in a real month.
- How to read an income statement (P&L)Revenue, cost of revenue, gross margin, operating expenses and net income, read line by line, on accrual basis, with the mistakes founders make most.
- Accrued expenses vs accounts payable: the differenceAP is a bill you’ve received; an accrued expense is a cost incurred before the bill arrives. When to accrue, and how reversing entries work, by example.
- Cash vs accrual accounting for startups, and the IRS ruleCash or accrual for a startup: why investors and auditors read accrual, when the IRS lets a C-corp file on cash, and the 2026 gross receipts limit.
What it is not called
Each of these is a real word for a different thing. Using it here is what makes a product read as though it was built by someone who has not done the work.
- method
Components that render this
The concept is not documentation-only. These are the components that name it in their specification, grouped and stated exactly as the catalog states them.
Components that render the terms it depends on
Little in the catalog names this concept outright, but its definition is built out of others that are named. These render accrual.
Terms this one depends on
Also in Core ledger
Work with this concept
The calculators that compute it and the ledger payloads that carry it. A definition is where a reader starts; these are where they go next.
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.