What is technical accounting?

Technical accounting is the work of deciding how a transaction should be recorded under the accounting standards: revenue recognition on complex contracts, lease classification, business combinations, share-based payments, impairment. The output is a position memo that an auditor, and sometimes a regulator, will test.

Definition

Position memoTypical output

ASC 606, ASC 842, IFRS 15, IFRS 16Main standards

AuditCategory

It is judgement work done by controllers, technical accounting teams at listed companies and the national offices of audit firms, and it has been almost untouched by software until recently. Trullion reads leases and contracts to produce ASC 842 and ASC 606 entries; RightRev automates revenue schedules from Salesforce; Quillon gives technical accountants a workspace to research standards, benchmark SEC filings and draft memos where every claim traces to a source paragraph. The point of the tooling is not speed alone but an audit trail for the reasoning.

Common questions

What is a technical accounting memo?+

A written analysis of how a specific transaction should be accounted for, citing the relevant standard paragraphs, considering alternatives and concluding on the treatment, kept as audit evidence.

Who does technical accounting?+

Controllers and dedicated technical accounting teams in larger companies, and the technical or national office at audit firms that reviews difficult positions.

Which software supports technical accounting?+

Trullion for lease and revenue accounting from source documents, RightRev for ASC 606 revenue schedules, Quillon for research and audit-ready memos.