Open/Close Period Control

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Introduction

Open/Close Period Control feature manage the periods of an organization. This feature applies to organizations for which the "Period Control" feature is enabled.

The Period Control feature allows to assign a Fiscal Calendar containing years and periods (normally months) to an organization.

Overall the "Period Control" and the "End Year Close" processes can be executed in Openbravo by following below recommended steps:

• The creation of the Years and the Periods (i.e. monthly periods) in the "Fiscal Calendar" window
• The opening of all the period/s, that means including the "13th Period" or adjustment period, in this window
• The closing of the standard period/s, that means excluding the "13th Period" or adjustment period, in this window.

This step can be done once the corresponding transactions have been posted to the ledger within a "standard" period.
It is not mandatory to close the standard periods of a given year before running the Close Year process.
Closing the standard periods however helps to track the periods which have been already reviewed and adjusted if required and therefore closed in order not to allow any further posting within those periods.

• The posting of the accounting adjustments to the ledger if any, in the "13th Period" by using a G/L Journal/s.
• The execution of the Close Year process in the "End Year Close" window.
  This process generates the closing accounting entries such as the P&L closing entry, and besides closes the standard and adjustment periods if those are still opened. After the Closing of the Year, all it's Periods will be in a Permanently Closed status. A Period in a Permanently Closed can no be reopened, it is necessary to Undo the Closing of the Year first.

Additionally the Undo Close Year process undo all what has been done and therefore accounted by the close year process. This process besides opens all the periods which were closed.
This is done to allow that the corresponding changes can be posted to the ledger as required in an standard period.
Once the corresponding changes have been accounted, the "Close Year" process can be run once again. Once again this process generates the closing accounting entries and closes all the periods.

As already mentioned:

• It is not possible to create years and periods directly on this window, use the Fiscal Calendar window to create new years and periods.
• It is not possible to generate the closing accounting entries directly on this window, use the Close Year process which can be found in the End Year Close Window.
  

Finally, it is also possible to check the "Status" of a given period is to navigate to the Period Control tab of the Organization window.

Period Control

In Open/Close Period Control window all the Periods previously created in the Fiscal Calendar window are shown.

However, the records are filtered by their "Status" and "Organization", by showing only the Periods which are not in Closed Status and belongs to the Organization in which the User is logged in. This filters can be removed by clicking in the funnel icon.

This Window shows two Tabs. The first Tab shows all the existing Periods. Once selected a record in this Tab, the lower one shows all the Document Types and their Status in that Period. With this layout it is possible to easily manage the status of a Period as a whole as well as the status of a particular Document Type inside a specific Period.

The way to manage the Opening/Closing of a Period is:

• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Periods.
• Select the Periods for which the action is going to be performed.
• Click on the Open/Close Period, select the action to perform, and click OK.

Once done, Openbravo informs that the process has been completed successfully.

The way to manage the Opening/Closing of a particular Document Type for a specific Period is similar:

• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Document Type.
• Select the Document Types for which the action is going to be performed.
• Click on the Open/Close Period, select the action to perform, and click OK.

Once done, Openbravo informs that the process has been completed successfully.

As shown in the image above the main fields in this window are:

• the Status. It is split in two columns. One that represents the Status with a color code, making it easier to understand the situation at a quick glance. The other one represents the Status by it's name, making it possible to filter the records shown. The possible Status values are:
  • All Never Opened, colored in gray. Recently created Periods.
  • All Opened, colored in green. All the Document Types are open for this Period.
  • All Closed, colored in red. All the Document Types are closed for this Period.
  • Mixed, colored in orange. Not all the Document Types have the same Status value in this Period. For more information refer to the Documents Tab below.
  • All Permanently Closed, colored in red. All the Document Types are Permanently Closed for this Period.
• the Calendar
  • Openbravo automatically displays the calendar of the organization, as an organization can only have one calendar assigned. In fact this field is a read-only field
• the Organization
• the Year
• the Period No.
• the Name of the Period
• the Starting Date of the Period
• the Ending Date of the Period

These fields can be used as filters to show the desired records. For example, filtering by a Calendar, and Organization and a Year it is an easy way to show all the Periods of a particular Year.
Then it is possible to select all records shown and Open or Close all of them at once.

• the Period Actions available are:
  • Open Period
    • this action opens the period/s.
  • Close Period
    • this action closes the period/s.
      Once a period is closed it is not possible to post or to undo the posting of any transaction in that period/s. A closed period/s can always be re-open by just selecting it and executing the action "Open Period" for the period/s.
  • It is only possible to open and close the accounting periods of "Legal with Accounting" Organization types for which Allow Period Control check is enabled

• If a period is open for all document types but it is close for a given document type, for instance AP Invoice, it will be possible to post transactions of any type within that given period but AP Invoice transactions.

Period Control examples

Example 1:

The organization in this example has created three consecutive years and has open all the periods including the "13th Period" as shown in the image below:

Above configuration means that the organization in this example can post any document to the ledger at any period within those 3 years. If the organization would try to post a sales invoice in Dec-2011, Openbravo will shown an error as that year/period does not exist.

The organization in this example needs to close the 2012 year.
Before running the "Close Year" process for 2012 the organization in this example closes all the 2012 standard periods until Dec-12 in order not to allow any further accounting on any 2012 standard period. The way to do that is:

• Move to Open/Close Period Control Window.
• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Periods. In this example, filter by Calendar, Organization and Year (i.e. 2012)
• As the Year has all it's Periods Open, including the Adjustment Period, the Window should show thirteen records.
• Select all the periods except the 13th Period and click on the Close Period button and select the action "Close Period" (as this one allows to reopen the year/period if needed)

Above action closes all the 2012 standard periods until Dec-2012, therefore it is not possible to post any transaction to the ledger in any 2012 standard period anymore but:

• to post "G/L Journals" to the ledger in the "13th Period"
  
• and to post the "Closing" entries automatically created by the Close Year process to the ledger

unless:

• the corresponding 2012 standard period/s is/are re-opened. That is only possible if the 2012 year is not closed, otherwise the Undo Close Year needs to be run.

Example 2:

The organization in this example closed all the periods until December of a given year (i.e. 2012). Every period is closed on a monthly basis, once all the transactions/documents have been properly accounted. Someone in the organization missed to enter an accounting entry through a G/L Journal. That accounting information should have been registered in July of that year.
The company in this example can re-open the periods until July and can post a G/L Journal within that period. The way to get that working is:

• Move to Open/Close Period Control Window.
• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Periods. In this example, filter by Calendar, Organization and Year (i.e. 2012)
• Select all the Periods from January to July.
• Click on the Open Period button and select the action "Open Period"

After that, accountants will be able to create and post a G/L Journal dated in July 2012.

Example 3

The organization in this example opens every period the last day of the previous period. It is June 30th, 2012 when finance team opens Jul-12 period. By beginning July a customer asks to delay the issue of a sales invoice to August.
The Financial Team does not want to open Aug-12 period for all the documents types until July 31st, therefore opens Aug-12 period just for the sales invoices.
The way to get that working is:

• Move to Open/Close Period Control Window.
• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Periods. In this example, filter by Calendar, Organization and Year (i.e. 2012) and select the Period of August.
• Move to Documents Tab of Open/Close Period Control Window.
• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Document. In this example, filter by Document Category
• Select the "AR Invoice" Document Category and click on the Open Period button and select the action "Open Period"

Once done, it is possible to issue and account the sales invoice in the period of "August" and send it to the customer.

Following on this example, the finance team will have to Open "Until" August period for all the documents by ending July.

Documents

When a Period is created in the Fiscal Calendar Window, it is possible to Open or Close it in this Window. Performing this actions directly for that Period affects all the associated Document Types at once.
For example, opening a Period results in opening all the Document Types for that Period, making it possible to post transactions of any type withing that given Period.
But it is also possible to Open or Close each Document Type in the same Period.

Once a Period is selected in the Periods Tab of this Window, all the available Document Types will be shown in the Documents Tab, making it possible to select any of them and Open or Close it.

The way to manage the Opening/Closing of a particular Document Type for a specific Period is:

• Use the filters of the grid to show the desired Document Type.
• Select the Document Types for which the action is going to be performed.
• Click on the Open/Close Period, select the action to perform, and click OK.

Once done, Openbravo informs that the process has been completed successfully.

• As in the Periods tab, the Status is split in two columns. One that represents the Status with a color code and one that represents it by it's name. The possible Status values are:
  • Never Opened, colored in gray. It belongs to a recently created Period.
  • Open, colored in green.
  • Closed, colored in red.
  • Permanently Closed, colored in red. Document Permanently closed. Only by reopening a Year it is possible to Open it again.

Notice that:

• 13th Period has only one Document Type, GL Jornal, since in the Adjustment Period only GL Journal Transactions can be posted.
• If a period is open for all document types but it is close for a given document type, for instance AP Invoice, it will be possible to post transactions of any type within that given period but AP Invoice transactions.
• If not all the Document Types of that Period have the same value, for example some are Closed and some are Open, then the Status of the Period is Mixed

Full list of Open/Close Period Control window fields and their descriptions is available in the Open/Close Period Control Screen Reference.

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