CLOSE PERIODS

Use this screen to close accounting periods to data entry. The closing process checks for unposted transactions, deletes posted timesheets in Payroll, and changes the period's status to Closed on the Manage Accounting Periods screen.

You must post the following transactions for the selected fiscal year and period before you can close the period:

• Vouchers

• Journal entries

• Allocation journal entries

• Cash receipt

• Cash disbursements

• Manual bills

• Unit usage

• Intercompany receivables

• Labor distribution (timesheets)

The period must be closed in Fixed Assets, if applicable, before you can close the general ledger accounting period. You must also post all transactions for the selected fiscal year and period in Inventory and Sales Order Entry, if applicable, before you can close the accounting period.

You can close a period multiple times, if necessary. If you need to reopen a closed period, do so on the Manage Accounting Periods screen. If you reopen a period, you must run the Close Periods process again when you are ready to close it.

See Closing the Accounting Period for more information.

Only one person at a time can use this screen.

Location

Select Period

Fiscal Year

Enter, or click to select, the fiscal year for the period to be closed.

Period

Enter, or click to select, the accounting period that you want to close. When you close a period, Costpoint assigns the Not Available status to all of its subperiods.

After you close a period, if the total number of open periods in all fiscal years is less than the entry in No of Periods to Keep Open on the Configure General Ledger Settings screen, Costpoint opens the next "not available" period. If no eligible periods exist, a warning message is displayed.

Close Option

Test

Select this option to test the data in the selected fiscal year and period to make sure that you can close the period. The test process checks for unposted transactions.

You must test the data before you can close a period. You can do that in one of two ways:

• Select the Test/Close Pd option and run the process to both test and close.

• Select the Test option, run the process, select Close Pd, and run the process again.

The Close Pd option is not available if you have not run the process using the Test option.

This process does not check for unposted sales order entry invoices unless you have purchased Sales Order Entry and does not check for unposted inventory transaction records unless you have purchased Inventory.

• If you select Close Pd, Costpoint moves the unposted transactions to the first subperiod of the following period within the fiscal year for which you are closing a period. Costpoint does this without verifying whether the accounts and projects are active for the new fiscal year/period combination.  (Note that Costpoint does not move unposted transactions in this case if you are closing the last period of a fiscal year.)

• If Costpoint finds any unposted transactions with a status of Hold or Over Budget, it displays a message and asks if you want to continue testing.

• If Costpoint finds any unposted transactions with a "non-hold" status (such as timesheets), it stops the process and displays a message to tell you that the transactions must be posted before you can close the period. The message also lists any journals that have unposted transactions.

• If you use Fixed Assets, you must also close the same period in Fixed Assets before you can close the accounting period. Use the Close Fixed Assets Accounting Period screen to close the fixed assets period.

• Costpoint also tests the Standard Bills, Customer Product Bills, and Project Product Bills journals for unposted entries. If any of these journals contains unposted transactions for the selected fiscal year and period, Costpoint displays a message to tell you so and to give you the option of continuing or canceling.

• If you use Payroll and the Payroll Journal has not been posted, Costpoint displays a message to tell you so. Costpoint also checks timesheets for inclusion in payroll posting, whatever fiscal year and period you are closing.

Close Pd

Select this option to close the period. This option is disabled if you do not first run the process with the Test option selected to verify whether or not the period can be closed. This option is also disabled if the test locates any unposted transactions with a status of "non-hold." After you post those transactions, you must run the process again with Test selected.

Test/Close Pd

Select this option to test the period data and then close the period in a single process. This process performs the same tests as when you select the Test option. However, if anything fails the test, the process does not close the period. (See the explanation of the Test option above for a description of the test process.)

Run the Close Periods Process

To test, close, or both, you must test and close the selected period. Then click Test/Close Periods on the Action menu.

• Table Information

  Costpoint records entries in the Posting Semaphore table during the close process and also updates the Posting Sequence Number table to indicate that the period is closed. The journal code for a period closing is CPD.

  Closing the accounting period sets the status of the period to Closed in the Accounting Periods table. The statuses of all subperiods and journals associated with the period are automatically changed to Not Available, which disables data entry for that accounting period.

  If you use Costpoint Inventory, the Close Periods process checks the Inventory Transaction Status table for unposted inventory transactions. This table contains one record for each fiscal year/period/subperiod combination with unposted transactions. Because Costpoint does not need to retrieve a large number of records, processing time is quicker.

  If you use Costpoint Payroll, the closing process deletes timesheets that have been posted for both Labor Distribution and Payroll if the timesheets are for the period being closed or for any fiscal year and period prior to that period. If you do not use Costpoint Payroll, the process deletes timesheets from the Timesheet table if they have been posted to Labor Distribution, regardless of fiscal year and period for which they were entered.