Prepaid expenses, depreciation & unearned revenue are multi period items, while accrued expenses & accrued revenues are accrued items.
Multi-period items are revenue and expense items that relate to more than one accounting period. Accrued items on the other hand are revenue and expense items that have been earned or incurred in a given period, but not yet entered into the accounting records. They are the two reasons for adjustments.
These adjustments typically occur at the end of each accounting period, and are akin to temporarily cutting off the flow through the business pipeline to take a measurement of what is in the pipeline. This is consistent with the revenue and expense recognition rules.
Learn about the conceptual understanding of these examples at Principlesofaccounting.com.
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