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Open and close periods, and lock the past

This screen decides what can still be written. The months and years these books are kept in, and the six dates that decide what can still be written.

You need

• accounting.periods.read
• accounting.periods.create
• accounting.periods.close
• accounting.locks.update

Steps

1. Open Periods and press New period. Give it a Name, a Starts and an Ends. You are not asked for the year: The fiscal year is worked out from where your country starts its own — it is not asked for here.
2. When the month is done, press Close on it. Add a period for each month or quarter you report on. Closing one refuses any later posting into it.
3. If you truly must go back, press Reopen and answer Why is it being reopened? Kept with the period. Closing it stays on the record too — reopening does not undo it.
4. Under Lock dates set the dates that close the past off per kind of entry — General, Sales, Purchases, Tax, Everyone and Hard lock. Nothing on or before a lock date can be posted for the kind of entry it governs. Leave one empty for no lock.
5. Think twice about the last one. Moves forward only. Once set, this date can never be brought back.
6. At the end of the year press Close the year and name the Financial year. Takes every revenue and expense account of the year to zero and posts the result to retained earnings, dated the last day of the year. It is a journal entry and can be reversed like any other.

A closed period and a lock date are different tools: the period says this month is finished, the lock date says nothing on or before it may be written whatever period it falls in.

Related

• Post a journal entry, and reverse one
• Check where the books stand today
• Take a trial balance, a profit and loss, or a balance sheet