Accruals - Are they worth the effort?

Accruals - Are they worth the time and effort?

Because.....Star Trek?

Soooo, accruals.  In my experience, accruals are bottlenecks in every medium to large company - in some cases even in small companies.  Typical issues include late delivery, incomplete or inaccurate numbers and time consuming processes to collate and post.

On top of that, in many businesses, monthly costs are comparatively consistent - so the monthly result isn't particularly different if you don't post accruals.  Depending on the focus of your management reports, it may not matter at all (for example, if your management reports are cash focussed or primarily focussed on non financial performance indicators).

With that context, why do businesses spend the time and effort to collect data and post accruals (at least on a monthly basis) ?  For compliance reporting, such as half and full year accounts, you obviously have to take the time, but why every month?