How to record an accrued interest journal entry

An accrued interest journal entry accounts for interest that has been earned or incurred but hasn't yet been paid or received. This type of journal entry ensures that interest is recognized in the correct accounting period, even if no cash transaction has occurred. Proper journal entries keep your financial statements accurate and reflect the true economic activity of your business, maintaining proper compliance and transparency.

What is accrued interest?

Accrued interest accumulates on a loan or investment but hasn’t been paid or received yet. If you're using accrual accounting, you record the interest as it is earned or incurred, regardless of whether you have received or made the payment.

For instance, let’s say you owe interest on a loan. The interest will continue to accrue daily until the next payment date. This means that on your financial statements, you need to show the interest you owe even if you have not made the payment yet. If you have invested in bonds, the interest on those bonds accrues over time but may only be paid out periodically, such as quarterly or annually.

Accrued interest helps keep your financial records accurate. Without it, your balance sheet would be incomplete, and you will risk misstating your financial position. It ensures that the financial impact of interest is reflected when it happens, not when the cash is actually exchanged.

Why is accrued interest important?

Accrued interest helps keep your financial records accurate and up-to-date. Without properly recording accrued interest, your financial statements will not reflect your company's true financial picture. This can mislead stakeholders, cause problems with tax filings, and even result in compliance violations.

• Ensures accurate financial reporting: Recording accrued interest ensures that your financial statements reflect the income or expenses you've earned or incurred, even if payments haven’t been made yet. This keeps your reports accurate and aligned with the actual economic activity of your business.
• Helps maintain compliance: Accrual accounting rules, including those outlined in both GAAP and IFRS, require businesses to report accrued interest. Ignoring this can lead to non-compliance with financial reporting standards and result in penalties or audits.
• Gives a clearer picture of financial health: Tracking accrued interest gives you a more complete view of your business’s financial health. This helps you spot liabilities or income that will affect future cash flows, allowing you to plan ahead more effectively.
• Prevents misleading financial statements: Without properly accounting for accrued interest, your financial statements may not fully reflect your financial obligations or income. This can lead to mistakes in financial analysis, resulting in poor decisions or misinterpretations of your business's health.
• Strengthens investor confidence: Investors and stakeholders rely on accurate financial statements to make informed decisions. Consistently reporting accrued interest builds credibility and shows that your company is committed to transparency and good financial management.

With Ramp’s accounting automation features, you can easily manage accrued interest by automatically tracking your financial obligations and income. This reduces the risk of manual errors, keeps your records accurate, and makes it easier to meet compliance standards.

How to record accrued interest journal entry

The process of recording accrued interest is typically done at the end of each accounting period. If your business operates on a monthly cycle, you will record the accrued interest at the end of each month to ensure your financial statements accurately reflect any accumulated interest. It usually only takes a few minutes to record the entry once the necessary details are gathered.

When recording accrued interest, the main difference between borrowers and lenders lies in how the interest is classified. For borrowers, interest is an expense that you owe and classify as a liability (Accrued Interest Payable). For lenders, interest is revenue you have earned but not yet received, classified as an asset (Accrued Interest Receivable).

For borrowers: Recording interest expense

As a borrower, it's important to record interest expenses even if you have not paid them yet. This ensures that your financial records accurately reflect the cost of borrowing in the period when the interest was incurred, not when the payment was made.

To record interest expense, you need to debit Interest Expense and credit Accrued Interest Payable.

For example, let’s say you have a loan of $10,000 with an interest rate of 5%. Over the course of one month, the interest accrued would be:

($10,000 * 0.05) / 12 = $41.67

You would then make the following journal entry:

• Debit: Interest Expense $41.67
• Credit: Accrued Interest Payable $41.67

Accrued Interest Payable is a current liability because it represents the amount you owe but haven’t yet paid. By making this journal entry, you ensure that your financial statements reflect the interest cost for the appropriate period, even if the cash payment will happen later.

For lenders: Recording interest revenue

For lenders, accrued interest represents the revenue that has been earned but not yet received. Just like for borrowers, it’s important to recognize the interest earned in the correct accounting period, per accrual accounting rules.

To record interest revenue, you need to debit Accrued Interest Receivable and credit Interest Income.

For instance, if you have lent $10,000 at a 5% interest rate, the interest you have earned for one month would also be $41.67. The journal entry would look like this:

• Debit: Accrued Interest Receivable $41.67
• Credit: Interest Income $41.67

Accrued Interest Receivable is classified as an asset because it represents the money you are owed but have not yet received. This ensures your financial records reflect the revenue that has been earned, even if the cash payment is still to come.

How to calculate accrued interest

Accurately calculating accrued interest is crucial for maintaining precise financial records and ensuring compliance with contractual agreements. Miscalculating interest can lead to incorrect financial reports, tax discrepancies, and potential compliance issues.

To calculate accrued interest, you need to know the principal, the interest rate, and the period over which the interest accrued. These three factors are then applied to a formula to calculate the interest.

The basic formula for calculating accrued interest is:

Accrued interest = Principal * Interest rate * Time period

In this formula:

• Principal is the amount of money involved in the loan or investment
• Interest rate is the annual rate, usually expressed as a decimal (e.g., 5% = 0.05)
• Time period is the amount of time for which interest has accrued, typically expressed in years or fractions of a year (e.g., one month = 1/12 of a year).

Let’s go through an example of applying this formula using monthly and daily accrual methods.

Monthly accrual method

Imagine you have a $10,000 loan with a 5% annual interest rate and want to calculate the interest for one month. Here, the time period is one month, or one-half of a year. The calculation would be:

Accrued interest = $10,000 * 0.05 * (1/12) = $41.67

So, for one month, the interest accrued would be $41.67.

Daily accrual method

If you were calculating the interest on a daily basis, you would first convert the annual interest rate to a daily rate. Assuming the accounting standard 360 days in a year, the daily interest rate is:

0.05 / 360 = 0.00013889

Next, for a 30-day period, the interest calculation would be:

Accrued interest = $10,000 * 0.00013889 * 30 = $41.67

The daily accrual method is particularly useful in situations where interest is calculated more frequently or the exact number of days matters. The daily method allows for more precision, especially when interest periods do not neatly align with months.

Accurate calculations of accrued interest are essential because even small mistakes can lead to significant discrepancies in your financial statements.

Underreporting interest can cause an understatement of expenses or income, leading to incorrect tax filings or financial analysis. Conversely, overreporting interest can distort your financial health, which can mislead stakeholders or investors.

Examples of calculating accrued interest

Calculating accrued interest is essential for keeping your financial records accurate. The calculation method can differ depending on the type of financial instrument you are working with.

Loan with monthly interest

Imagine you have a $5,000 loan with an annual interest rate of 6%. The loan requires monthly payments, but you need to calculate the interest that has accrued over a 30-day period.

To calculate accrued interest, you first need to determine the fraction of the year that corresponds to the 30 days. Since there are 365 days in a year, the time period is:

30 / 365 = 0.08219 years

Now, you can apply the standard formula for accrued interest. Plug in the values:

Accrued interest = $5,000 * 0.06 * 0.08219 = $24.66

This means the interest accrued for the 30 days is $24.66. This would be the interest amount you need to account for on your financial statements, even if the payment has not been made yet.

Bond with semiannual interest

Now let’s look at a bond with a $10,000 principal and an annual interest rate of 4%, where interest is paid semiannually. You need to calculate the interest accrued over a 90-day period.

Since interest is paid twice a year, the first step is to calculate the total interest for the 6-month period. The formula is:

Semiannual interest = (Principal * Interest rate) / 2

Substituting the values:

Semiannual interest = ($10,000 * 0.04) / 2 = $200

Now that we know the semiannual interest, we need to figure out how much of this interest has accrued over 90 days. Since 90 days is half of a 180-day semiannual period, the accrued interest is half of the semiannual interest:

Accrued interest = $200 * (90 / 180) = $100

Thus, the accrued interest for the 90-day period is $100.

Short-term note

Lastly, let’s consider a short-term note with a principal of $2,000 and an annual interest rate of 9%. You need to calculate the interest for a 60-day period.

To calculate the interest, first, convert the 60 days into a fraction of a year:

60 / 365 = 0.16438 years

Now, apply the accrued interest formula:

Accrued interest = $2,000 * 0.09 * 0.16438 = $29.58

The interest accrued over the 60-day period is $29.58.

Accrued interest in other financial contexts

In corporate finance, you will encounter accrued interest when dealing with loans, bonds, or other financial instruments. Even if you have not made or received payment yet, the interest that accumulates must be recorded to reflect your true financial position.

For personal finance, accrued interest affects everything from savings accounts to credit card balances. It ensures that your financial statements accurately capture the accumulated interest, even if no money has been exchanged.

In the bond market, accrued interest directly impacts bond prices. When you buy or sell a bond between coupon payment dates, you will pay or receive the accrued interest for the period since the last payment. This is added to the bond price, giving you the "dirty price." The price you see quoted initially, the "clean price," doesn’t include this accrued interest.

As a buyer, you'll pay this additional amount. When the next coupon payment is made, you will receive the full interest amount, including the portion accrued before you made your purchase. This affects your overall return on the bond investment, as it influences both the amount you pay upfront and the income you will earn.

Automate accrued interest entries with Ramp's AI-powered accounting tools

Recording accrued interest journal entries manually is time-consuming and error-prone. You need to calculate interest for each period, create the right entries, and ensure everything posts to the correct accounts—all while keeping up with daily transaction volume and month-end deadlines.

Ramp's accounting automation software eliminates this manual work by handling accruals automatically. When you have outstanding liabilities or interest-bearing accounts, Ramp posts accrual entries at month-end so expenses land in the right period without manual intervention. The platform reverses these entries automatically in the following period, ensuring your books stay accurate and audit-ready without duplicate work.

Here's how Ramp streamlines accrued interest accounting:

• Automated accrual posting: Ramp identifies transactions that need accrual treatment and posts the entries automatically at period-end, so interest expenses are recognized when incurred
• Automatic reversals: Accrual entries reverse automatically in the next period when the actual transaction posts, eliminating manual cleanup and preventing double-counting
• Real-time transaction coding: Ramp's AI codes every transaction across all required fields as it posts, learning your accounting patterns and applying your feedback to improve accuracy over time
• Seamless ERP sync: Accrual entries sync directly to your accounting system alongside routine transactions, so your general ledger stays current without manual data entry

With Ramp handling accruals in the background, your team closes books 3x faster and saves 40+ hours every month on manual accounting work.

Try an interactive demo to see how Ramp automates accrued interest entries and month-end close.