In order to cut off the transactions that are posted to a particular month or accounting period, the General Ledger System must be closed for that period. Once the period is closed, the final reports can be generated for the period.

Even after subsequent periods are closed, you may still regenerate reports for prior periods and should get the same values reported.

The period does not need to be closed in order to enter data for subsequent periods. The journal entry date is used to determine to which period the transaction belongs. In this way you may mix transactions for various periods and the system will post each individually to the proper period provided the period is still open.

When journal entries have transaction dates which fall into a closed period, the journal entry will be posted to the first subsequent open period.

Normally the General Ledger System is closed as late as possible but early enough to affect a timely General Ledger Close. Normally, this would be sometime before the middle of the following month.

The General Ledger System should not be closed prior to closing other subsystems which feed transactions to it. Other such subsystems may be Purchasing and Receiving, Inventory and etc. When the proper interfaces have been programmed, you will not be able to close the General Ledger until those other subsystems have been closed.

All Journal Entries having dates within the period being closed must be posted or the close will not be allowed.

If, after the close, you find material transactions which need to be closed into the period, you can reopen the period. By unposting and reposting Journal Entries which may have been closed to the wrong period because the period was closed, you can get late entries reposted to the correct period.

The links will guide you through the basic steps of closing a period. These links are not intended to show you all of the options and functions available but is intended to give you a quick introduction which should work under most circumstances. Use this Quick Start guide while you actually go through the process. Each Quick Start link will give you the information you need to accomplish the task. Click on the above Quick Start image to start the guide.

We suggest that you practice closing periods. and printing reports and explore the options and functions in order to fully learn the features available to you. When you are finished with practice, you can reopen and then unpost and repost and Journal Entries which may have been affected while you were practicing.

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