Accounting Periods
Accounting Periods are the date ranges (typically months) that define when transactions can be recorded in your company. They serve two purposes: making sure every transaction falls inside a valid date range, and letting you close a period once you've reviewed it, so no one can accidentally record or edit a transaction dated inside an already-closed month.
What are they and what are they for?
If your company has not defined any accounting period yet, the system applies no date restriction at all: you can record transactions on any date freely.
As soon as you define the first period (for the whole company, or for a specific subsidiary), the system starts requiring an open period that covers the date of the document you're recording. If the date falls outside every defined period, or inside a period you already closed, AdmCloud won't let you save the transaction.
This gives you control to, for example, close January as soon as you finish reconciling that month's accounts: from that point on, nobody can record or edit invoices, payments, journal entries, inventory movements or fixed-asset movements dated in January, preventing mismatches with what you already reported or filed.
The six closing switches
Every accounting period has an independent closing switch for each area of the operation, so you can close some areas while leaving others open within the same month:
| Area | Blocks transactions from |
|---|---|
| Accounting | Journal entries and other General Ledger movements dated within the period. |
| Banks | Deposits, bank charges, transfers and reconciliations dated within the period. |
| Sales | Invoices, cash receipts, credit notes and other Accounts Receivable documents. |
| Purchases | Vendor bills, payments, purchase orders and other Accounts Payable documents. |
| Inventories | Inventory receipt, issue and adjustment movements. |
| Fixed Assets | Fixed-asset movements and depreciation. |
A period with every switch showing a green check (✔) is fully closed; a pencil icon (✎) means it's still open for that area.
How to use it
- Open the list. You'll see every period already created, ordered by date, with status columns for each of the six areas and the subsidiary each one belongs to.
- Create the whole year at once. The Set Full Year button automatically generates the 12 monthly periods for the year you pick (you can choose from 4 years back up to 2 years ahead of the current year), for the subsidiary you're currently working in. It's the fastest way to get started — no need to create each month by hand.
- Or create a single period. Use New for a specific date range (for example, a period that isn't a calendar month, or an extra year-end adjustment period).
- Close it once you're done reviewing it. Open the period from Details, then Edit, and turn on the closing switch for every area you already validated. You don't need to close every area at the same time.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| From / To | The date range covered by the period. It can't overlap with another period from the same subsidiary. |
| Subsidiary | Limits the period to a specific subsidiary; if your company manages subsidiaries, each one keeps its own independent periods. |
| Accounting / Banks / Sales / Purchases / Inventories / Fixed Assets (closed) | The six closing switches described above. Each one is turned on independently. |
Validations when saving
- The "From" date can't be later than the "To" date.
- No overlapping date ranges: the new period's range can't cross another existing period's range for the same subsidiary.
- No duplicate periods: you can't create two periods with the exact same date range for the same subsidiary.
- Subsidiary is required when saving from the form, if your company has subsidiaries enabled.
- A period can't be deleted if it already has budgets linked to it (Budgets by period).
Availability and conditions
- Access is controlled by the "Accounting Periods" permission on the user group, with separate levels for view, add, edit and delete.
- The Accounting module is available from the Start plan onward; on the Enterprise plan it depends on the Accounting module being enabled for your company.
- If your company has subsidiaries enabled, each subsidiary keeps its own independent periods; otherwise, periods apply to the whole company.
Tips and common mistakes
New company. If you don't need to restrict dates yet, you can work without defining any period; once you want to start controlling the monthly close, use Set Full Year to create all 12 months at once.
"The accounting period is not open" or "You must set up the accounting periods for year X". This message shows up when you try to record a transaction dated inside a closed period, or in a year for which periods already exist but none of them covers that date. Check the document's date, or reopen the corresponding period if it was closed by mistake.
Partial closes by area. You can close Accounting and Banks for a month as soon as you finish the bank reconciliation, and leave Sales or Purchases open a few extra days while you finish recording that month's pending documents.