Open an Accounting Period

To create transactions such as charges and refunds as well as post receipts, you must open an accounting period.

Note: Once you open an accounting period, you can't reverse the process.

When you're ready to transact in a particular period, open the corresponding accounting period of the ledger. To create charges and post receipts to the relevant period, you must open the receivables accounting period. To post refunds, you must also open the payables accounting period.

Tip:

• It's important to know your CoA - Reporting Period Frequency and Fiscal Start Date before you open an accounting period.

• If you aren't able to post transactions in Student Management, it may be because your accounting period isn't open.

• You must convert legacy transactions (invoices, error data, and so on) in your legacy system. Run your legacy system and Student Management in parallel until all transactions in the legacy system are completed. Going forward, use Student Management for new transactions.

Open the First Accounting Period

To open the first accounting period:

1. Sign in as FINUser.

2. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the Open First Period task:

   • Offering: Financials

   • Functional Area: General Ledger

   Note that the Scope column says Select. This means a business unit hasn't been assigned.

3. Click Select.

4. In Primary Ledger, select your ledger.

   Your ledger name is a combination of the name you provided when you uploaded your enterprise structure and the country code you used.

5. Click Apply and Go to Task.

6. In the Basic Options area, select these values for these fields:

   Field	Value
   Data Access Set	Select your ledger.
   Ledger or Ledger Set	Select your ledger.
   Accounting Period	Select the period you want to transact in.

You should open an accounting period one at a time, when you're ready to transact in that period. Depending on how you set up your enterprise structure, you may need to open multiple periods to get to the current period.

Open Subsequent Accounting Periods

If you want to transact in periods later than the first period you opened, you must open subsequent periods.

1. Click Navigator > General Accounting: Period Close.

2. Click General Ledger.

3. From the list of accounting periods, select the next accounting period that comes after the first one you opened, then click Open Period.

   A process is submitted to open the accounting period you selected, then creates the succeeding month's accounting period. Note the Status icon for each row. This indicates whether the row is an open or closed period.

4. To open succeeding accounting periods, click Refresh to refresh the list, then select the next unopened accounting period.

   Make sure the accounting period for the next month appears on the list so that you can open it.

5. Repeat steps 3-4 making sure you select the succeeding accounting period that's still closed until you open the accounting period you want to transact in.

Open the Receivables Accounting Period

To open the receivables accounting period:

Note: In your implementation, make sure you begin with the accounting period that applies to your institution. This period may be the beginning of your fiscal year or calendar year.

1. Click Receivables.

   The Open First Period dialog box appears.

2. In First Period, select the period you want to transact in, then click OK.

3. If a Warning dialog box appears, click Yes.

4. From the Confirmation dialog box, click OK.

   You have submitted a process to open the accounting period for the subledger.

5. On the Edit Accounting Period Statuses page, click Refresh.

   You may have to do this several times until the accounting period you opened appears on the list. Once the receivables accounting period is open, the Receivables icon on the Period Close page shows an Open status.

6. Click Done.

Open the Payables Accounting Period

Initially, the Payables icon shows a Never Opened status. To open the payables accounting period:

1. Click Payables.

   The Open First Period dialog box appears.

2. In First Period, select the transaction period you want to post transactions in, then click OK.

3. If a Warning dialog box appears, click Yes.

4. From the Confirmation dialog box, click OK.

   The process to open the accounting period for the subledger is submitted.

5. On the Edit Accounting Period Statuses page, click Refresh.

   You may have to do this several times until the accounting period you opened appears on the list. Once the payables accounting period is open, the Payables icon on the Period Close page shows an Open status.

6. Click Done.