Period lock — close a period you have filed

Once a return is filed or a year is closed, the figures behind it should stop moving. Period lock does most of that: choose a date, and adding, editing or deleting a sale, purchase, estimate or voucher dated on or before it is refused — for everyone, master users included. A few changes still get past it; they are listed under What the lock covers below, so read them before you rely on the lock. You set it under Administration → Setup → Period Lock.

What the lock covers

On or before the locked date, adding, editing or deleting any of these is refused:

• Sales and Sale Estimates
• Purchases and Purchase Estimates
• Vouchers — payment, receipt, contra, journal, credit and debit notes, and Sale Reversal and Purchase Reversal

The lock is checked on each document's own page, and in these places too:

• Changing the date doesn't get round it. When you edit a document, one dated inside the locked period cannot be saved, and one dated after it cannot be moved into it.
• Deleting many at once. When you delete sales, purchases or vouchers in bulk from a register, the ones inside the locked period are skipped and reported, and the rest are deleted.
• Automatic entries. A voucher raised by Auto vouchers cannot be approved, and supplier payments from Purchase payment automation cannot be posted, when their date falls inside the locked period. Clubbing vouchers into one is refused when any of them, or the clubbed voucher, would be dated inside it.
• Documents from a connected business. One that would post into your locked period cannot be accepted — it waits on your Incoming page until you move the lock. When you share past documents with a connected business, the ones dated inside their locked period show Their period closed and cannot be picked.
• Your own organisations. Transaction sync never writes into a period that either organisation has locked.
• Spreadsheet imports. On the Import/Export pages, a sale, purchase, estimate or voucher dated inside the locked period is neither added nor updated from the file. One already in your books is listed with the locked date and left as it is; new ones are counted, not listed one by one. Someone allowed to manage the lock can tick Include documents up to ‹date›: they are then written when you press Import, up to that date only. Sale and purchase orders are not held by the lock. A spreadsheet never cancels a document.

The lock does not stop these, so keep them in mind while a period is locked:

• Deleting estimates from a register. Deleting sale estimates or purchase estimates from their registers — one at a time or many at once — goes ahead even when they are dated inside the locked period. Delete on an estimate's own page is refused.
• Adding documents with Import from Busy 21. An Import from Busy 21 that adds documents is not stopped by the lock, so older records you are moving across can still be loaded into a closed period.
• Re-importing from Busy 21. When an Import from Busy 21 would update or cancel documents dated inside the locked period, it says how many, and each is left as it is with the reason — unless someone who manages the lock ticks the box that names the locked date and checks the file again; the import then changes them, up to that date only. Its changes pass the same checks as a spreadsheet's: a document with an e-invoice, or with returns made against it, is never cancelled from the file, and changing a document needs the right to edit that kind of document. To cancel an e-invoiced sale or purchase, make sure its IRN is cancelled on the e-invoice portal, then delete it by hand: in View Sale (or View Purchase), open its More actions and choose Delete.

Lock a period

1. 1

   Open the page

   Go to Administration → Setup → Period Lock — the page is headed Period locking. Current status shows the date your books are locked up to, or No period lock set, and when it was last changed.

2. 2

   Pick the last day you have filed

   In Books locked up to, choose the last day of the period you have filed — for example 31 March for a year you have closed.

3. 3

   Press Update lock

   Press Update lock. The lock then applies to everyone in your organisation, for everything dated on or before that day, as described under What the lock covers.

4. 4

   Move it on as you file

   After your next return, pick the later date and press Update lock again. To open every date again, press Clear lock and confirm with Yes, clear it.

• Who can change it. Master and admin users, by default. Anyone else who opens the page sees whether the books are locked but cannot change it; a master user can give someone the right — see Users, groups, and policies.
• Opening a period again. The date can be moved earlier as well as later. Moving it back, or clearing it, lets everyone add, edit and delete in those dates again, so keep it open only for as long as the correction takes.
• One lock, two places. Reports → Compliance Profile has a Period locking box that changes this same lock.

What is never locked

Sale Orders and Purchase Orders can always be created, edited and deleted, whatever the lock says. An order is a promise to trade, not a record of one — it puts nothing in your ledger, moves no stock and files no tax, so it cannot change a period you have already filed. An order raised in March can still be fulfilled and amended in May.

• The sale an order becomes is checked. When you dispatch a sale order with Sale transit, the Sale it creates is checked against the lock on the sale's own date.
• Shared orders. When an order is shared with a connected business, your changes still go to them as a proposed change to approve or decline — see Changing an order after they have it. Orders a connected business sends you can be accepted whatever your lock says.
• Looking is never locked. You can still open, print, send and export documents in a locked period — the lock only stops changes.

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