Financial period locking settings are available on both an organization and clinic location level. These settings are designed to prevent financial events from being backdated into previous time periods where finances have already been reconciled, such as into a previous month or year. Once the financial period is closed, no financial events such as invoices or payments can be dated before the closing date.

Financial period locking is primarily enabled and set from a clinic location level using a combination of 3 settings. This means each clinic location can independently control and customize their financial period closing behavior. Financial period locking settings are especially useful in automatically locking monthly financials after reconciliation has occurred.

To find the financial period locking settings, go to Settings > General > Clinic location > Finance, in the Financial Period & Dates section.

This first financial period closing setting can be used manually, or it will automatically update when settings 2 and 3 are in use. This setting is a date entry field, such as 03/04/2022. The date entered is the date which financial events cannot be backdated past when in use.

When this setting is enabled, setting 3 appears for use, and it also automatically updates the date entry for setting 1. With automatic locking, each month is locked on time, so financial events cannot be backdated into a month that is already reconciled. The automatic date entry for setting 1 will always be the last date of the previous month.

This setting defines the day of the month when the Earliest possible date for financial events is updated automatically. On that day, the earliest possible date is set to the last day of the previous month. Changing this setting does not update the earliest possible date right away.

For example, you change this setting on February 20:

Choose a day that gives your accounting staff enough time to reconcile the previous month. For example, if reconciliation normally takes 10 days, select 10 or a day shortly after. A later day leaves more time for financial events to be backdated into a month that is already reconciled.

If the chosen date value is not available in the current month (29, 30, 31), the last available day of the month is used as the triggering day that month.

Financial period closing can also be managed from the organization level by updating 3 settings manually when needed.

To find the organization financial period locking settings, go to Settings > General > Organization, in the Organization settings section.

This first setting is an enable/disable selection which provides visibility to settings 2 and 3, and provides access to controlling financial period locking from an organization level.

Setting 2 is a date entry field. This setting is similar to setting 1 on the clinic location level, and controls the date before which financial events cannot be dated. It is used in combination with setting 3.

This setting is a check box field. When marked, and settings are then saved, the date entry from organization setting 2 above, overrides the date entry on the clinic location level within clinic location setting 1 discussed above. This is a manual indication to update the financial period closing date for all locations. It will not continue to trigger any automatic date updates.