Opening and Closing Accounting Periods
Open and close accounting periods to control journal entry and journal posting, as well as compute period- and year-end actual and budget account balances for reporting.
Accounting periods can have one of the following statuses:
Open: Journal entry and posting allowed.
Closed: Journal entry and posting not allowed until accounting period is reopened. Reporting and inquiry allowed.
Permanently Closed: Journal entry and posting not allowed. You cannot change this period status. Reporting and inquiry allowed.
Never Opened: Journal entry and posting are not allowed. General Ledger assigns this status to any period preceding the first period ever opened in your calendar, or to any period that has been defined, but is not yet future-enterable. You cannot change this period status.
Future-Entry: Journal entry is allowed, but posting is not. Your period is not yet open, but falls within the range of future-enterable periods you designated in the Set of Books window. You cannot change this period status without using the concurrent process to open the period.
You can open new accounting periods, close accounting periods, reopen closed accounting periods, and open an encumbrance year (if you are using encumbrance accounting).
Note: When you define a new set of books, choose carefully the first accounting period you want to open. Once you open your first accounting period, General Ledger does not allow you to open prior accounting periods.
Additionally, you cannot translate account balances for the first period ever opened. Therefore, we recommend that you open at least one period prior to the first accounting period in which you wish to enter transactions.
Additional Information: If you use Multiple Reporting Currencies, you must open/close accounting periods in your primary set of books and in each of your reporting sets of books.
Prerequisite
Define your set of books.
To open a new accounting period:
1. Navigate to the Open and Close Periods window.
2. General Ledger displays the Latest Open accounting period. Note that while a period may be the most recently opened accounting period, this period may have a current status of closed.
3. Choose Open Next Period. General Ledger calculates the ending account balances for the current period, and launches a concurrent process to open the next period. The current period remains Open.
Suggestion: Although you can have several open accounting periods, to maximize the efficiency of the General Ledger posting process, as well as to minimize the possibility of user error, limit the number of accounting periods that are open at one time.
If you open the first period of a new fiscal year, General Ledger automatically updates the Retained Earnings account.
To close an accounting period:
1. Navigate to the Open and Close Periods window.
General Ledger displays all accounting periods defined for your calendar with the period type of your set of books.
2. Select the open period that you want to close.
3. Enter a new status for the period.
- Enter Closed to prevent entering or posting journals to that period. You can reopen a closed period at any time.
- Enter Permanently Closed to prevent entering or posting journals to that period. You cannot reopen a permanently closed period.
To reopen an accounting period:
1. Navigate to the Open and Close Periods window.
General Ledger displays all accounting periods defined for your calendar with the period type of your set of books.
2. Select the period that you want to reopen. You can reopen any closed period that is not permanently closed.
3. Change the status to Open.
See Also
Opening an Encumbrance Year
Defining Calendars
Defining Sets of Books
Entering Journals
Posting Journal Batches
Multiple Reporting Currencies Overview
