Automated Journal Entries & Amortization Schedules for CPA Firms

Every reporting period, journal entries and amortization schedules must be prepared, reviewed, adjusted, and explained.

These tasks are repetitive and time-consuming. Plus, manual calculations increase the chance of errors, especially when leases change, assumptions shift, or remeasurements are required.

For audit and lease accounting teams, this creates friction during close and review. The time that could be used for judgment and business growth is instead used for checking formulas and retracing inputs.

In this blog, we explain why automated journal entries and amortization schedules lessen the load for CPA firms so teams can spend less time fixing issues and more time moving engagements forward.

Key Takeaways

• Manual journal entries and amortization schedules create unnecessary risk, rework, and review burden for CPA firms.

• Small spreadsheet errors can multiply across schedules and entries.

• Lease changes and remeasurements are especially difficult to manage with manual processes.

• Automation standardizes calculations, reduces errors, and improves consistency across engagements.

• Automated journal entries and amortization schedules support faster close cycles and cleaner audits.

• Lease accounting software helps teams spend less time fixing issues and more time validating results.

What Are Automated Journal Entries?

A journal entry is the initial, chronological record of a financial transaction. Thus, automated journal entries are records of financial transactions that are not created manually. Instead of re-keying numbers from schedules into the general ledger, the entries are generated automatically.

Can Amortization Schedules Be Automated in Accounting?

Yes, amortization schedules in accounting can be fully automated.

With spreadsheets, schedules rely on formulas that can be copied, edited, or broken over time. Automated schedules apply the same calculation rules consistently, removing the risk that one lease is treated differently from another.

Automation also changes how lease changes and remeasurements are handled. Usually, it would require rebuilding schedules or manually updating formulas. With accounting automation tools, changes to lease terms, payments, or assumptions are automatically taken into account. This eliminates rework and reduces the chance of errors when leases evolve over time.

The Problem with Manual Journal Entries & Amortization Schedules

1. Manual processes don’t scale as lease volume or accounting complexity increases. A significant portion of financial close efforts, around 50%, is consumed by manual journal entries, leaving less time for strategic work.
2. Small input errors like data typos or broken formulas in spreadsheets can distort amortization schedules in accounting or lead to incorrect general ledger impacts.
3. Often, teams spend more time fixing and reviewing data than analyzing. Instead of digging into trends or assessing lease accounting impacts, staff are rerunning schedules or manually reconciling adjustments.

Tasks like amortization schedule updates and journal review turn into delay points during month-end close and audit preparation. However, many CPA firms think brute force manual work will fix these problems.

Where Manual Processes Break Down

Manual lease accounting workflows tend to fail in the same places, especially once volume and complexity increase.

• Remeasurements: A single change to a lease term, rate, or payment structure can trigger a domino effect of recalculations across an amortization schedule. In a manual setup, those changes require line-by-line updates.

• Version Control: A frequent problem is a lack of version control. During the close or audit, preparers and reviewers often exchange different copies of the same file, making it unclear which version is final, which adjustments have been approved, or what alterations were made between drafts. As an auditor, you must ensure the accuracy of clients' lease accounting spreadsheets and figures, and require assurance that their controls are free of any material weaknesses.

• Formula Errors: A single formula error could create multiple errors on one or more calculations. The absence of strong internal controls to ensure the accuracy of the spreadsheet creates far more work during the audit. When an error or issue is discovered during the audit, there will be rework, which means more time working in the spreadsheet. 

All of this drives up review time. Instead of validating accounting conclusions, reviewers spend hours checking formulas, reconciling versions, and retracing steps.

What Automation Looks Like In Lease Accounting

1. Amortization schedules in accounting are calculated automatically. Instead of rebuilding spreadsheets every period, automation applies consistent logic to lease inputs and produces schedules without manual intervention. This reduces the chance of human error creeping into calculations.
2. When lease terms change or remeasurements are triggered, automated systems update schedules and related calculations without retyping formulas or copying cells.
3. Journal entries are generated consistently every period. Automated journal entries help keep financial records updated promptly and consistently, which supports more accurate reporting and control.
4. Rather than maintaining tangled worksheets, automated processes produce audit-ready outputs that are easier to share, export, and defend. Firms adopting accounting automation tools report faster closes and clearer audit trails, enabling decision-makers to act on timely financial data.
5. Because automation reduces manual data entry and formula issues, review time drops significantly. Teams can focus on validating results and interpreting accounting impacts instead of fixing clerical mistakes.

Mini Checklist: Is Your Lease Accounting Process Automation-Ready?

If these questions sound familiar, your current process is likely doing more work than it should.

• Are schedules rebuilt or manually updated each reporting period? Recreating or heavily editing schedules month after month is a clear sign the process isn’t sustainable.

• Do remeasurements require heavy spreadsheet rework? If a lease change means digging into formulas and recalculating line by line, the risk of error rises fast.

• Is review focused on correcting errors instead of assessing reasonableness? When reviewers spend most of their time fixing issues, not validating conclusions, it’s a problem.

• Do audit requests pull your team back into old workbooks? If supporting questions send staff back through prior files, the process isn’t audit-friendly.

• Are formats inconsistent across clients or engagements? Different templates, assumptions, or structures make standardization difficult.

If you checked more than one of these, you need automation to reduce risk, speed up review, and make lease accounting work easier to manage.

Using Lease Accounting Software to Automate Journal Entries and Amortization Schedules

Manual journal entries and amortization schedules in accounting create unnecessary risk and workload for audit teams. As lease portfolios grow and standards like ASC 842 continue to demand precision, spreadsheets become harder to maintain, review, and defend.

Crunchafi’s Lease Accounting software was built to remove that friction. It automates amortization schedules in accounting and generates consistent journal entries directly from lease data, so calculations stay accurate and outputs are always audit-ready. Teams spend less time fixing errors and more time reviewing, validating, and moving engagements forward.

To get started with Crunchafi’s Lease Accounting software, schedule a demo today!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do automated schedules support audit readiness?

Automated schedules support audit readiness by standardizing calculations and documentation across leases and engagements, so auditors see consistent structure, logic, and outputs every time. Lease inputs flow directly into amortization schedules and automated journal entries, creating clear traceability without manual explanation or spreadsheet walkthroughs. As a result, audit requests are faster and easier to respond to, with less time spent recreating support and more time keeping the audit on track.

What’s the risk of using spreadsheets for amortization schedules?

Spreadsheets introduce risk because they rely on formulas and manual assumptions that can be easily changed or broken without being noticed. Small errors can ripple through entire amortization schedules, increasing review time as teams spend hours checking formulas, reconciling versions, and retracing calculations instead of validating the accounting. As lease volume grows, this approach becomes harder to scale.