Finance → Accounting → Accounting Periods → /accounting-ledger/accounting-periods
Finance → Accounting → Period close → /accounting-period-close
An accounting period is a month (or a defined period) that can be open or closed. Posting is only allowed into an open period. Closing is what makes a reported number stop changing.
Why periods matter
Without period control, a journal posted today can silently change last quarter's profit — after it was reported to a board, a lender or a tax authority. Closing a period draws a line: history becomes read-only, and corrections have to be made deliberately and visibly in the current period.
Managing periods
The periods list shows each period with its status. From here you can:
- Close a period once its activity is complete.
- Reopen a closed period, when a genuine correction requires it.
- Select a period as the context for a close run or a report.
The guided period close
The Period close screen walks a formal close rather than leaving it to a checklist in someone's head.
Before you start
Confirm your branch context and the period you are closing. Closing in the wrong branch is the most common mistake here.
Select the accounting period
Choose the period to close.
Continue to readiness
Move to the readiness stage.
Run the readiness checks
The screen runs a set of checks and reports what is not yet ready. Refresh checks re-runs them after you fix something.
Submit close
When the checks pass, submit. The close is performed and confirmed as Close completed; the period shows CLOSED.
The close is idempotent — submitting the same close twice does not double-post. The screen labels this as idempotent replay, which means a retry after a network failure is safe.
Month-end sequence
The close is the last step, not the first. In order:
Finish billing
Recurring invoices generated, IoT billing runs posted, one-off invoices issued.
Capture all receipts
Every payment recorded, with references.
Allocate everything
Filter payments for available amount greater than zero and clear it. Unallocated cash distorts both receivables and the debt-aging report. See Allocations.
Record and pay expenses
Including attributing them to units and blocks so owner statements are complete.
Process adjustments
Credit notes, debit notes and any approved write-offs.
Reconcile the bank
Every bank line matched to a payment, expense payment, refund or disbursement.
Submit outstanding tax documents
Check the eTIMS queue for unsubmitted or rejected invoices. See Tax & eTIMS.
Review the trial balance
Look for accounts with unexpected balances or wrong-side balances before you close, not after.
Generate owner statements
Owner statements read the period's data; generate them before the close so the figures are final. See Owner statements.
Close the period
Run the guided close.
Posting after a close
Once a period is closed:
- Postings dated into it are rejected.
- A correction to a closed period is normally made in the current period with a clear description, rather than by reopening.
- Where the correction genuinely belongs in the closed period — a statutory restatement — reopen, post, and close again, with the reason documented.
Reversals and corrections
Posted journals are never edited in place. Corrections go through supported paths — credit notes, refunds, reversal-and-repost — so the audit trail shows what happened and what was done about it. The journal screens show the reversal journal link where one exists, and every posting carries a posting key so a duplicate event returns the existing journal instead of posting twice.
Common problems
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Cannot post an invoice or payment | Its date falls in a closed period. Post in the current period, or reopen with authorisation. |
| Readiness checks will not pass | The checks name what is outstanding. Fix it, then Refresh checks. |
| Numbers changed after close | Someone reopened the period. Check the audit trail. |
| Trial balance does not balance | Report an issue — a genuinely unbalanced ledger is a system-level problem, not a data-entry one. |