Closing the Books

Closing protects periods you have finished. Once a month is reported or a year is filed, nobody should be able to post into it by accident. Workstation gives you two tools:

The period lock stops postings before a date. Use it every month.
The year-end close transfers the year’s profit or loss to equity and closes the year. Use it once a year.

Both are in Accounting → Accounting settings.

Fiscal years

Open Accounting settings → Fiscal years. Each company has its own list of fiscal years, created from its Fiscal year starts month. The table shows each year’s period, status (Open, Draft close, Closed, Upcoming, Disabled, or No activity), its closing voucher, and whether it is locked.

Click New fiscal year to add one. A normal year is exactly twelve months. If you need a shorter or longer year, for example when changing your year end, tick Transition fiscal year. Years cannot overlap.

Disable posting in this year blocks ordinary postings in that year. Once a year has activity or a closing voucher, its dates cannot change and it cannot be disabled.

To change your fiscal year start month after the calendar is in use, create a transition year instead; the start month setting is locked.

The fiscal-year shortcuts on reports use these years, including transition years.

Period lock

Set Accounting settings → General → Locked before to a date. Nothing can be posted or reversed with a date before that day, including cancellations and payments.

A typical routine: when September is reconciled and reported, set Locked before to 1 October. If you find a mistake later, move the date back, post the correction, and move it forward again. Every change to the lock is recorded in the audit log.

Locking never moves profit into retained earnings. That only happens in the year-end close.

Close the year

A year can be closed after it ends, and years close in order: every earlier year with activity must be closed first.

On the Fiscal years tab, click Prepare close on the oldest year waiting to close.
Choose the Closing equity account, usually Retained Earnings, and write a Review note.
Check the Closing entry preview. It lists every income and expense account balance that will be closed.
Click Save draft. Nothing is posted yet.
Review the draft and click Post closing voucher.

The closing voucher (numbered PCV-…) is dated on the last day of the year. It brings every income and expense account to zero and posts the net profit or loss to the equity account. Your source transactions are untouched, and the Profit & loss report for that year still shows the full income and expenses.

If the company tracks stock, the close is blocked until the Inventory account agrees with the Stock ledger value.

After the close

Posting the closing voucher closes the year: nothing can be posted on or before the year end until the close is reopened. It also moves Locked before to the day after the year end.

If the period lock is already later than the year end, move it back before posting the close.

Reopen a year

Only the latest closed year can be reopened. Click Reopen fiscal year and enter a Reason. Workstation posts a reversal of the closing voucher on the original closing date, so the year returns to exactly its state before the close and can be closed again. The automatic lock goes back to the previous close; a lock you set yourself is kept.