This guide explains how to spread purchase invoices in Twinfield for costs that cover multiple periods (for example a yearly IT retainer booked in January but earned across the full year). Cortena posts the normal purchase transaction first, then creates the Twinfield spread when your workflow is configured to do so.
Who this is for: Finance teams on Twinfield who receive invoices with service or subscription periods and want accrual spreading without re-keying periods in Twinfield.
Feature availability: Accrual spread is feature-flagged. Contact support@cortena.ai or your account manager to activate Twinfield accrual spread for your organisation before you configure the workflow option below.
What Cortena does
- Cortena extracts service periods from the invoice and stores structured service accrual dates on line items.
- Cortena exports the invoice to Twinfield as a purchase transaction (INK), provisional or final.
- Immediately after a successful purchase export, Cortena posts a Twinfield spread for eligible lines.
- Amounts move to your accrual GL account and are spread across the service period.
Spread runs only on lines that qualify: structured service accrual dates, and period length meeting your tenant minimum service period for accrual booking.
Minimum service period
Under Settings → Accounting preferences, configure Minimum service period for accrual booking:
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Whenever a service period is found | Any line with valid service accrual start/end dates (default) |
| At least 1 / 3 / 6 / 12 months | Inclusive period length ≥ 30 / 90 / 180 / 365 days |
| Custom minimum (days) | Your own day count (1–3650) |
Enable spread on the workflow export node
- Open Settings → Workflows → Invoice workflow.
- Select the Export to accounting node for Twinfield.
- Enable Spread invoice (accruals).
- Set Booking stage to Provisional or Final as required.
- Publish the workflow.
Enable the checkbox on each export node where spread should run (typically both provisional and final if you use a two-stage flow).
Prepare invoices before export
- Confirm a service accrual period appears on lines you expect to spread.
- On qualifying lines, review the Accrual GL account suggestion (manual choice → supplier history → expense GL history → tenant-wide default).
- Every line that should spread must have an accrual GL account set.
When spread is skipped or partial
| Situation | Result |
|---|---|
| Workflow option off | Purchase exports; no spread |
| Line has no service accrual dates | Line not spread |
| Service period below tenant minimum | Line not accrual-eligible |
| Service period equals invoice period only | Line skipped |
| Mixed service periods | Spread by line |
Quick reference
| Task | Where |
|---|---|
| Request feature activation | support@cortena.ai |
| Set minimum service period | Settings → Accounting preferences |
| Enable spread on export | Invoice workflow → Export to accounting → Twinfield |
| Twinfield setup | Twinfield |
| Provisional → final | Twinfield provisional and final |