Setting Up Accounting Periods

Set up and maintain the accounting periods that are used by General Ledger for a particular fiscal year using the Accounting Periods form. Accounting periods are used only to visually group transactions.

Note:

You must set up these accounting periods before transactions can be posted.
You cannot delete an accounting period if ledger transactions exist for that period in the fiscal year.

To set up accounting periods:

Open the Accounting Periods form.
In the Fiscal Year field, enter the year for which you want to add or change periods.
Click the Filter-in-Place button.
If the fiscal year is closed, select the Closed check box.
Note:
- The system does not treat a closed year as a hard close; transactions can still be posted to a closed year.
- If a fiscal year is flagged as closed, none of its periods are considered to be open. For this reason, at least one year should be defined as open.
Select the desired period (from 1-13) in the fiscal year.
(Optional) Set the fiscal year start date.

Note: By default, the Start Date field for the first period is set to the first day of the fiscal year, but you can change it.
Do one of the following:
- To have the system create the accounting periods in monthly increments, select the Monthly option and then click Generate Period. The system automatically updates the period starting and ending dates.
- To have the system create the accounting periods in quarterly increments, select the Quarterly option and then click Generate Period. The system automatically updates the period starting and ending dates. Each period is three months long.
- To create custom periods, manually enter the starting and ending dates of each accounting period in the fiscal year.
Select Actions > Save.

To generate the control number sequence by period or by year, use the Accounting Period Control Number Sequences form.