Financial Close
The month-by-month home for closing the books — eight tasks, what blocks a lock, and where the wizard takes over.
Financial Close is where you work a month to the point where it can be locked. It is a year of month cards; open one and you get eight close tasks read from that period's figures, a trial balance for the same dates, and a Lock button that stays disabled until nothing blocks it.
Navigate to: Finance → Financial Close
Who Can Open It
Financial Close requires chart-of-accounts read rights, and it is never available to the Staff role. Without them the page states "Access restricted — Financial Close requires chart-of-accounts rights" and offers a way back to the dashboard. The sidebar entry follows the same rule, so the page is simply absent rather than broken.
The Year Grid
Step through years with the arrows; you cannot move past the current year. Each card carries one badge:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Closed | A period for this month was closed. It stays open to review. |
| Reopened | The period was closed and then unlocked again, with the reason on record. |
| Ready | The month has ended and no period exists for it yet. This is the one to work. |
| In progress | The current month. Still accumulating — it cannot be opened. |
| Upcoming | A future month. |
A card is only clickable once its month has ended. There is nothing to close about a month that is still receiving transactions.
The Month Workspace
Opening a month gives you its progress — a percentage and a "N of 8 done" count — and two tabs, Checklist and Trial balance.
The Eight Tasks
| Task | What it reads | Blocks the lock? |
|---|---|---|
| Receivables | What customers still owe as at the period end | No |
| Payables | What you still owe vendors | No |
| Uncategorized income | The balance sitting in the Uncategorized Income holding account | Yes |
| Uncategorized expenses | The balance sitting in the Uncategorized Expenses holding account | Yes |
| Bank reconciliation | Book against bank, per cash and bank account | No |
| Prepayments | The recurring journals set up for prepayments | No |
| Accruals | The recurring journals set up for accruals | No |
| Depreciation | What is outstanding on the depreciation side | No |
Each task shows one of three states:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Done | Nothing outstanding for this task in this period. |
| Pending | Items remain, but they do not stop the month being locked. |
| Action needed | Items remain and need attention. On the two Uncategorized tasks this also carries a Blocking badge. |
Clicking a task expands it in place rather than sending you away:
| Task | What the panel lists |
|---|---|
| Bank reconciliation | Account · Book balance · Bank balance · Difference. Empty state: "No bank or cash accounts." |
| Uncategorized income / expenses | Account · Items · Amount. Empty state: "Nothing uncategorized." |
| Accruals / Prepayments | The recurring journals in place. Empty state: "No recurring journals set up." |
| Receivables / Payables / Depreciation | The accounts with something outstanding, and the amount. Empty state: "Nothing outstanding." |
The Trial Balance Tab
The same period's accounts — Code · Account · Debit · Credit — with a totals row that reads either Totals or Totals — out of balance. It is the same set of figures the checklist is sliced from, so the two can never disagree.
Locking the Month
Lock {Month} is enabled only when nothing blocks. While something does, the line beneath it reads "N tasks remain". Clicking it hands over to the four-step period-close wizard, which is where the trial balance is reviewed, adjustments are taken, a snapshot is saved and the period is actually locked — see Period Close.
Lock opens the wizard on a blank Step 1 — it does not carry the month you were working over. Set the same month (or period type and dates) again on the Configure step, or the period you close will not be the one you just proved.
The two Uncategorized tasks block for a reason. A month locked with money still sitting in Uncategorized Income or Uncategorized Expenses has bank movements that were never classified, so the P&L and Balance Sheet for that period are incomplete — and the period is now locked against the corrections that would fix it.
Related
- Period Close — the four-step wizard the Lock button hands over to
- Classifying uncategorised money — how to clear the two blocking tasks
- Bank Reconciliation — proving book against bank for the period
- Recurring journals — what the Accruals and Prepayments tasks read
- Finance overview — how the module fits together