Open and close process overview

Closing procedures and policies vary from company to company. Consequently, Sage Intacct offers flexibility so Intacct can adapt to your business practices.

Before you finally close the books for a period, you can close individual transaction summaries in:

• Accounts Payable (AP)
• Accounts Receivable (AR)
• Expenses (TE)

You can also close periods in Cash Management.

When you close the books for a period, Intacct closes all open transaction summaries and the Cash Management period. If you need to change a particular period or a summary in 1 of the following applications, you do not need to reopen all the books for that period. You can reopen only the application subledger that you need.

• Accounts Payable

• Accounts Receivable

• Expenses

• Cash Management

By subledger we mean all transactions in a given application. For example, in Accounts Payable, this includes the following:

• AP supplier invoice and adjustment summaries that users can directly access

• Invisible transactions that involve payments

• Inter-entity transfers

Suppose you have different staff for AP and AR. Your procedure is to stop writing cheques as you approach your monthly close, and then close down the AP clerks books. At the same time, you leave the AR clerks free to continue entering AR sales invoices and payments. First you close all the books, and then reopen AR. To reopen AR:

1. Go to General Ledger > All > Books > Open.

2. In the Open Books page, select the Open Accounts Receivable checkbox.

You can lock closed periods, which prevents them from being reopened or changed (even with adjustments).

Permissions

The permission settings for opening and closing activities in the following applications are separate checkboxes.

• General Ledger—open and close books

• Accounts Payable—open and close summaries

• Accounts Receivable—open and close summaries

• Expenses—open and close summaries

• Cash Management—open and close periods

Therefore, you can assign different tasks to different people. For example, you can assign the Accounts Payable supervisor permissions to open and close Accounts Payable summaries. But only the accounting manager has permission to open and close books in General Ledger.

While this is useful in a stand-alone company, it's even more useful in a shared structure of multiple companies. Users in the top-level company have control over the entities directly from the top level. Therefore they have no need to slide into the entities to close books or open them. Specifically, they can open the books for all entities or a single entity, and open specific subledgers in the selected entities.

In other words, the top-level user can open 1 subledger in 1 entity to make a change without exposing other subledgers in that entity or any subledgers in other entities.

To open or close books, go to General Ledger > All > Books > Open or Close.

Close books

Use the Close Books page to select the ending period for which you want to close the books. After books are closed, you cannot post transactions in any application for any date older than the selected period.

Closing the books is simply a way to prevent transactions from being posted to prior periods. Intacct retains all your transaction detail at all times. For example, after your annual audit is completed and the audit-adjusting entries are posted, you close the books to prevent anyone from posting additional transactions to the already-audited fiscal year. If you need to post adjusting entries after your books are closed, you can use the adjustment journal to do so at any time.

Closing a book always happens for the end of the month in which the reporting period ends. If you’re using custom periods, the period that you select for To the end of period might not close the books on the last day of the reporting period.

Even though you can select any custom reporting period, closing a book is always done at month end. The selected reporting period determines for which month the close occurs. For example, if you select a custom reporting period that ends Nov 26, the books will close to Nov 30.

Find which periods are closed

If you need to determine which months or periods are closed, open the Close books page. Because closing one period closes all the prior periods, there can't be any unclosed books before the last closed date. The Close company books from field shows you the date that the company books were last closed.

If your company has included it, you can also use the Closed through summary on a dashboard to see when books were closed.

For multi-entity companies, select the entity you’re interested in to see the last closed date.

Open books

Use the Open Books page to open books for a period that was previously closed. For example, if you inadvertently closed the books or if you must enter a change in a closed book. Usually, access to the Open Books page is highly restricted to the accounting manager, controller, or CFO.

To book adjusting entries to a closed period, use Adjusting Entries in the General Ledger application. Go to General Ledger > Setup > Adjustment.

You can open all the books or only those subledgers you want to change. For example, you can open Accounts Payable by itself if you only need to make 1 change to an AP supplier invoice summary without exposing the other applications.

To open and close summaries, go to the application's All menu and select Subledger. This option is available on the following application menus:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Expenses
• Client Expenses

Close summaries

You can close all summaries in a period or individually by summary name, provided the books are still open for the period in question. After a summary is closed, you cannot post transactions to that summary unless you reopen it.

When closing summaries in AP and AR, select To the end of period to close both AP supplier invoice and AR sales invoice summaries and adjusting summaries. To close a specific AP supplier invoice or AR sales invoice or adjusting summary, select that summary from the Close Summary dropdown list.

Open summaries that have not been closed are not automatically closed when you close summaries for a subsequent period. For example, suppose you have closed summaries for Q1, but not Q2. If you close summaries for Q3, Q2 remains open.

Open summaries

You can open previously closed summaries either by period or by summary name. After a summary is opened, you can again post transactions to that summary. If you opened a closed summary to post a single transaction, remember to close it again immediately so users cannot inadvertently post additional transactions to that summary.

Open and close periods with the application > All > Subledger options.

Close periods

Closing periods is analogous to closing summaries as described previously, except that Cash Management does not have summaries. Consequently, you close periods so users cannot create or change transactions in the Cash Management application for the period in question. If you need to enter a change in a closed period, reopen first via Cash Management > All > Subledger menu option.

You can close open periods for the Cash Management application independently of other applications. The books for the period must be open for the period in which you want to close a Cash Management period.

Open Cash Management periods that have not been closed are not automatically closed when you close a subsequent period. For example, you've closed the period for Q1, but not Q2. If you close the period for Q3, Q2 remains open.

Open periods

You can open closed periods for the Cash Management application independently of other applications. To create or change transactions in the Cash Management application, you must first reopen the books for that period. You can open 1 or more periods by choosing the appropriate value in the To the end of period field on the Open Periods page.

Close books for the year

General Ledger closing for the year is essentially the same process as closing any other period.

Prerequisite

For fiscal years that match calendar years, the reporting period is created for you. For fiscal years that operate in a different range, create the reporting period first. For example, if your fiscal year runs from March through February, create a reporting period named "Fiscal year ending 2022" to include the full period. To create a new reporting period, go to General Ledger > Setup > More > Reporting periods.

Close the books

1. Close any transactions in subledgers for the appropriate year-ending period.
2. As needed, close subledgers, or summaries, for the following applications:
   • Accounts Payable
   • Accounts Receivable
   • Expenses
   • Client Expenses
   • Cash Management
3. Close the books using the year-end reporting period for the year that you're closing.

Lock closed periods

You can lock a closed period, which prevents the period from being changed. If a closed period is locked, you cannot reopen it, and you cannot enter adjustments for it.

Locking a closed period is not permanent. If you need to enter adjustments for a locked period, you can unlock it.

Learn more about how to lock and unlock closed periods.