Set Up Fiscal Years and Close Periods

This requires the Finance Management add-on on top of Accounting.

1. Define your fiscal year

1. Go to Finance & Accounting → Fiscal years.
2. Create a fiscal year with a name and start and end dates.
3. This defines the annual structure your monthly accounting periods follow.

2. Close a period

1. Go to Finance & Accounting → Accounting period manager.
2. Review each month's status, along with journal counts and whether debits equal credits for the period.
3. Once month-end work is complete, close the period.

Closing a period protects your reports from accidental backdated changes. Sale invoices, purchase bills, and payment vouchers are blocked from posting into a closed period. If a correction is genuinely needed, an administrator with reopen access can reopen it.

A simple month-end checklist

1. Post all sales, purchases, receiving, and payments for the month.
2. Reconcile your bank accounts, if you're using Finance Management.
3. Review outstanding customer and supplier balances and clear up any disputes.
4. Post any recurring journals — depreciation, accruals.
5. Run the trial balance and confirm debits equal credits.
6. Run your profit and loss and balance sheet.
7. Close the period.

Year-end close

Once every period in a fiscal year is closed, an authorized user can run year-end close to move profit and loss into retained earnings and lock the year. Treat this as a senior-finance action, coordinated with your administrator.

Next step

Reconcile your bank account

Match your bank statement to your books.