Roll-forward
In accounting, roll-forward means opening → movements → closing, proven.
- Layer
- Lexicon
- Defined in
- Lexicon
- Components
- 3
Not a rule
Bookkeeping convention — not codified. US GAAP governs recognition, measurement and presentation — not the mechanics a bookkeeper uses to get there. Anyone citing a standard for this word is citing the wrong thing.
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 lesson that teaches 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.
Roll-forward, in use
Quoted from the 2 documents that use the word — what it does to an interface, in the spec's own sentence.
The eleven continuous assertions — entry balance, accounting equation, subledger ties, schedule ties, roll-forward continuity, cash tie, retained earnings, intercompany, numbering, period integrity, orphans.
Silently disappearing rows make the roll-forward impossible to follow.
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.
- rollup
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.
12Close, controls & consolidation
Family specAlso in Close
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.
- Prepaid & deferred releaseA premium paid on the 17th does not release in twelve equal slices. Day-weighted, or even — your call.Tool
- Depreciation scheduleStraight-line, declining balance or SYD, with the convention that decides the first period.Tool
- Lease — ASC 842 / IFRS 16PV of the payments at your IBR, the liability unwind and the ROU asset — straight-line for a finance lease, the plug to a level cost for an operating one.Tool
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.