The checklist
The close screen is a checklist for the period, with each step showing its state and who signed it off. It is deliberately a list of human steps rather than an automated pipeline: the value of a close is that somebody looked, and a close that runs itself is a close nobody has verified.
Close — March 2026
6 of 9 complete
What a good close looks like
- Every bank and card account reconciled to the statement, not to the feed.
- Every clearing account at zero. A clearing account with a balance is an unfinished transaction, not a balance.
- Accruals and prepayments posted, each with a description that explains itself.
- Depreciation run from the asset register.
- Receivables and payables agreed to the ageing reports.
- Statements reviewed by a person who would notice if a number were wrong.
- Period locked.
Fiscal periods and locking
Periods are managed at /accounting/periods. Locking a period refuses any posting dated inside it — that is the entire point, and it is what makes a published statement mean something. An entry that arrives late is posted into the current open period instead.
It is possible and it is occasionally right — a material error found in week one. It is wrong for a small late invoice. If statements have gone to a bank, an investor or an accountant, reopening means those statements no longer describe the books, and nobody will re-issue them. Post the correction forward instead.
When the close gets slower
| Symptom | Usual cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Reconciliation takes days | Nobody reconciled weekly. | Reconcile weekly. It is the same work, spread out. |
| A long suggestion queue | Payments arriving without references. | Put the invoice number where customers will quote it. |
| Many manual categorisations | Missing posting rules. | Write a rule the second time you see a transaction. |
| Clearing account will not clear | A processor payout treated as income. | See [Commerce](/docs/modules/accounting/commerce). |
| Approvals sitting | No named owner. | Name one. It is a person problem, not a software one. |
What this does not do
Steps are marked complete by people. There is no unattended close run.
Group adjustments are ordinary journal entries.
Sign-off is recorded, not routed.
Year-end is periods locked in sequence, not a separate process.
Questions
Can we close a period with the queue unanswered?
You can, and you should not. The queue is the list of things nobody has decided.
Who should lock the period?
Whoever signs the numbers.
Can we have a 13-period year?
Periods follow the fiscal year setting. Non-calendar structures are supported; talk to us before relying on an unusual one.
Related
Matching bank transactions to invoices, bills and journal entries in erp.io — the suggestion queue, confidence thresholds, and why you should never lower one to clear a backlog.
ReportsProfit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, trial balance and ageing in erp.io — how they are computed, what can be filtered, and what is not available.