true up
n.— «Each December, PG&E looks at the costs associated with delivering power to roughly 15 million Californians. In a process called the “true up,” the utility’s executives study their costs to buy electricity from power plants, maintain their electricity distribution network and hook up new customers, among other things. Then they determine what the next year’s rates will be, based on rate structures that state regulators already have approved.» —“Tiny drop in power bills for PG&E residential customers” by David R. Baker San Francisco Chronicle (California) Dec. 27, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The autocomplete function on your phone comes in handy, of course. But is it changing the way we write and how linguists study language? Also, suppose you could invite any two authors, living or dead, to dinner. Who’s on your guest list and...
When you had sleepovers as a child, what did you call the makeshift beds you made on the floor? In some places, you call those bedclothes and blankets a pallet. This word comes from an old term for “straw.” And: What’s the story...
“True up” is accounting slang meaning “to adjust a figure to its true value.” The adjustment may be either up or down, and typical causes include an estimate becomming outdated (similar to the PG&E;example) or end-of-period error corrections. I’ve heard the verb form more often than the noun, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in print before.