Kinxso Accounts — 8. Closing a period and a year

What closing a period does

Closing a period locks it. Once a month is closed, no new entry can be posted into it and nothing already in it can be changed.

This matters because a report is only meaningful if it still says the same thing tomorrow. If March stays open, someone can post a March transaction in July, and the March accounts you gave your bank in April are quietly no longer true.

Before you close a month

Work through this list. Each step closes off a category of error.

1. Every bank account reconciled to its statement for the month.
2. All supplier bills entered, including ones that arrived after month end but relate to the

month's costs.

1. All customer invoices raised for work done in the month.
2. Payments and receipts matched to the invoices and bills they settle.
3. Depreciation posted for the month.
4. Accruals and prepayments posted — costs incurred but not yet billed, and payments covering

future months.

1. Journal entries approved. Anything still pending is not in your numbers.
2. Trial Balance balances, and the Balance Sheet balances.
3. Profit & Loss reviewed against the previous month. Investigate anything that moved sharply —

it is usually a misposting rather than a real change.

Closing it

Accounting → Periods, choose the year and month, and close. The system will refuse new postings into that period from then on.

If you genuinely need to post into a closed period — an adjustment your accountant asks for — reopen it, post, and close it again. Do that deliberately and rarely; it is a decision, not a routine.

Year end

A year end is a month close with more care. In addition to everything above:

1. Count your stock and adjust inventory to the real figure.
2. Review fixed assets. Is everything on the register still owned and in use? Dispose of what is

not.

1. Review receivables. Anything genuinely uncollectable should be written off rather than left

inflating your assets and your profit.

1. Review accruals for anything missed.
2. Check the tax position and provide for tax owed.
3. Send your accountant the Trial Balance, Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet.
4. Post their adjustments when they come back, then close the final period.

Retained profit for the year moves into equity, and the new year starts with the Profit & Loss back at zero while the Balance Sheet carries forward.

Keep the evidence

Attach documents as you go — supplier invoices, bank statements, contracts — rather than hunting for them a year later when somebody asks a question about a figure. Documents keeps them with the transactions, and the Audit trail records who did what and when, which is the other half of being able to answer that question.