The Accounting Periods feature is designed to control which users can make changes to financial data in historical date ranges. For example, if your accountant or bookkeeper has already reconciled the previous financial quarter, that period can be locked to prevent further changes unless a user has the required permission.
Before enabling this feature, we recommend discussing it with your accountant or bookkeeper to develop a workflow suited to your business and accounting processes.
Creating Accounting Periods
By default, only System Administrators will have access to manage Accounting Periods. Any non-System Administrators who need to manage Accounting Periods will require access to the Accounting Periods settings page on their Role, which can be edited in Settings > Users & Security > Roles.
Scroll down to the Settings section and enable the Accounting Periods page access.
With access enabled for Accounting Periods, go to Settings > Billing > Accounting Periods.
The first step is to create a financial year. Select Add and follow the instructions shown in the prompt.
As explained in the prompt, enter the year that the financial year will end.
Select Confirm to create an Accounting Period for the financial year entered.
Repeat these steps for all past financial years as required.
After creating all the required financial years, select Save to finalise your changes.
The financial years you've created will be reflected in the list of Accounting Periods.
Note: PracSuite will consider any financial years that do not appear in the list of Accounting Periods as Open. Invoicing actions within open periods will not be restricted.
Managing Accounting Periods
Accounting Periods are managed in Settings > Billing > Accounting Periods.
Each Financial Year is divided into Financial Quarters and Months.
Accounting Periods can have the following statuses:
Open - This period is open for all Businesses and there are no user restrictions on working within this period.
Partially Locked - This period is locked for some businesses or only some quarters/months. Restrictions will be enforced for any locked periods.
Locked - This period is completely locked and user restrictions are enforced for the entire period.
When editing this page, each financial period will have a 'Manage' button available to manage that period. To manage a Month, Quarter or Year, hover over the associated row and select the Manage button.
Locking Months
Hover over the row for the month and select Manage Month on the right-hand side.
The status of the period for all businesses will be displayed along with the option to lock the period for each individual business.
When locking an individual month, you can lock the entire month, or lock up to a particular date within the month. Set the Lock Up To date according to your preference.
Partially locking the month can be useful if you wish to lock periods after completing weekly or fortnightly bank reconciliation processes.
Use the Apply Lock On date to choose the date the lock will apply. You can set this to 'today' to lock the period immediately or schedule the lock to occur at a later date e.g. the last date in the period.
Locking Quarters & Years
Hover over the row for the Quarter or Year and select the corresponding Manage button.
When managing Quarters and Years, you only have the option to lock the entire period as of a particular date.
Use the Lock Entire Period On date to choose the date the lock will apply. You can set this to 'today' to enforce the change immediately, or schedule the lock to occur at a later date e.g. the last date in the period.
After editing the Accounting Periods, select Confirm and then Save to finalise your changes.
Role Permissions
As this feature will restrict users from performing common functions, such as creating and editing invoices, there are specific Role Permissions to allow working within Locked Accounting periods.
To adjust these Role Permissions go to Settings > Users & Security > Roles and select the role you'd like to change.
Within the Invoices area, you will find a section titled 'Within Locked Accounting Periods' with the following permissions:
With both permissions disabled, users will not be able to complete any actions against invoices in locked Accounting Periods.
Full Access (Create, Edit, Delete and Allocate)
Users with 'Full Access' can create, edit, delete and allocate in ways that can affect previously reconciled values.
For example, a user with this permission could:
Create a new item or payment dated within a locked accounting period, affecting the total billed or received for that period.
Edit the date of an item, invoice or payment, affecting which accounting period those values appear in (i.e. moving items or payments into or out of a locked period).
Delete an item, payment or invoice within a locked accounting period, affecting the total billed or received in that period.
Allocate payments, refunds and write-offs to items or invoices within a locked accounting period.
Note: These settings do not override the standard invoicing permissions applied to the role. For example, if the role does not have permission to "Delete Invoices and Items", the user will still not be allowed to delete items or invoices within closed periods.
This permission should only be reserved for managers, bookkeepers and accountants who are trusted to maintain your records and understand how your accounts may be synchronised across other systems.
Allocate Only (Payments, Refunds and Write-Offs)
Users with the 'Allocate Only' permission can only allocate payments, refunds and write-offs to items or invoices dated within a locked account period. They cannot create new or edit existing invoices, items, payments, refunds or write-offs that are dated within a locked period. This permission will only allow changes to the allocation of payments, refunds and write-offs where they apply to the locked period.
For example, a user with this permission could:
Create a new payment dated in an unlocked accounting period and allocate it to an item or invoice dated within a locked accounting period.
Apply existing credits to new invoices and invoices in locked accounting periods.
Remove or edit allocations that are applied to items or invoices within a locked accounting period.
If you expect your staff to be able to pay off invoices in locked periods, this permission must be enabled.
Warnings
Users who attempt to change records in locked accounting periods will receive an appropriate message.
System Administrators and users with 'Full Access' in Accounting Periods will see the following warning when editing invoices:
Users with access to 'Allocate Only' will see the following warning when editing invoices:
Users without access to locked Account Periods will see the following warning when viewing an invoice.
Restricted users will see the following warning when attempting to delete items, invoices or payments:
Understanding Lock Symbols
When viewing Invoices on a patient file, a lock symbol will be displayed next the invoice number to indicate whether they are in a locked accounting period.
Open (No Symbol)
The invoice has not been issued and is considered open for additions (i.e. open invoicing).
Closed (Grey Lock)
The invoice has been issued or paid, and won't be used for open invoicing. The invoice can still be edited if needed.
Locked (Red Lock)
This invoice is locked by Accounting Periods, and only users with the appropriate Role Permissions can make further changes.
