Accrued salaries and wages are the earnings of employees but not paid or recorded when an accounting period ends. The number of costs recorded in the financial statement by the accrual method are the true costs of running the business for a certain period. For example, if employees worked the last week of December but are paid their wages in January, the wages are accrued as a liability. This method matches with the matching principle by recording the expenses on the same period on which it helps generate revenues.