Ledger Period Number
These must be set before anything else is done, and cannot be changed (other than by Period Ends or Year Ends) once any Transactions have been entered.
For the Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledger, the current Period number for the ledger is shown to the right of the Ledger legend.
Posting periods
Normal operation
The Sales and Purchase and Nominal Ledgers can all be in different periods.
The Nominal Ledger is always in the Current Year, though you can post Journals and VAT Journals to Future Periods and to Next Year.
The Sales and Purchase Ledgers can be in a Period and Year in advance of the Nominal Ledger. The reason for this is that often there will be a need to keep the Nominal Ledger open while the accounts are audited.
The other units do not have a Period Number, as they take this from the associated ledgers.
Stock Movements In take their Period number from the Purchase Ledger, while Stock Movements Out take theirs from the Sales Ledger, the year is always Current.
Costing Transactions entered directly to that unit, are always regarded as being entered in the Current Year, and take their ‘Period Number’ from an internal calendar, which is based on the data entered in Ledger Defaults. Costing Transactions arising in the other units take their period number from the unit concerned.
When a Year End is run in the Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledgers, Costing Transactions from those ledgers, have their year flag changed from Current to Last Year.
Period Soft Close operation
When enabled, you can do a 'soft close' of a financial period so that any financial changes for Period End procedures are limited to only those users who have the authority to do so. To enable this feature, you should select the Enable Working Periods option (in System Control Options), which allows you to roll the transaction posting period forward, thus preventing users who are posting transactions to post into that period; however users with the necessary permissions (in Security Profiles) can continue to post adjustments.
The Working Period can be more than 1 period in advance of the Open Period, including into next year. However:
the Working Period cannot be further ahead than Next Year period 12 (or 13 in a 13 period system),
the Nominal Working Period cannot be further ahead than the Sales/Purchase Working Period,
the Working Period cannot be earlier than the current Open Period.
More information on this feature, including which transactions are affected, can be found in the Soft Period Close topic.
Multi-user environment and Period End processing
In a Multi-user environment, where more than one User is connected to a database, the Period number will only reflect the actual Open Period after a Period End if the User Ctrl clicks on the Expand menu icon.
This applies to Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledger units.