Table of Contents

• Overview
• Financial Period Close Wizard
• Reopen a Closed Financial Period

Refer to Manage Financial Periods to learn about creating a Financial Period. 

Overview

Closing a Financial Period in Ordway is an essential step in the process of closing the books and finalizing financial statements at the end of the month. Ordway Financial Periods are designed to accelerate the month end processes, by organizing all financial transactions for the period for review, reconciliation, and closing.

It enables locking all the transactions for that period so that no further transactions can be created for that period. In exceptional circumstances, it is possible to open the period for missed transactions. Contact Ordway Support when necessary to address issues with a Closed Financial Period.

Note: Closing a Financial Period also closes any prior periods that were previously still open.

Example: Closing April 2020 will also close any periods prior to April 2020.

Preconditions:

Caution: Upon closing a Financial Period in Ordway for a specific period, all prior periods will also be closed.

Recommended Approach to take Prior to Closing a Period

The following records for the Financial Period must be created, and in one of the statuses listed below, in order to support closing the Financial Period:

• Subscriptions (Active, Cancelled, Changed, Renewed)
• Billing Runs (Posted or Deleted)
• Payment Runs (Completed)
• Usage (Active, Cancelled, Changed, Renewed)
• Journal Entry Runs (Completed)

Recommended Steps (Best Practices):

1. Confirm all necessary Subscriptions, Invoices, Credits, Usage, Payments, and Refunds are in their final status per the table above. If not, resolve issues prior to continuing.

Be aware that all reversed transactions for a Financial Period are included in the Financial Period, even though the transaction may have originated in a different period. Click on any active links for reversed transactions to see the reversals that occurred in the period.

2. Perform necessary reconciliations. Navigate to the Financial Period for the month to close, and click Close from the More menu.
   
   
3. Following the close, there’s an opportunity to continue reconciling transaction data using the finalized Summary Entries on the Financial Period. Detailed list reports are accessible for each transaction type, for both totals and reversals, by clicking on any of the active links provided on the Financial Period summary page. Each business should adopt its own reconciliation process.
   
   Note: Any activity processed now will go into the next Period.

Financial Period Close Wizard

Ordway features an in-app financial period close wizard to help streamline period close procedures including multi-currency considerations. The Financial Period Close Wizard facilitates a step-by-step guided experience to address all components of closing a financial period. 

Steps: 

1. Navigate to Menu > Finance > Financial Periods. 

2. Click Close from the Actions menu for the desired Financial Period.

Before the Wizard opens, Ordway automatically checks for Background Jobs in progress. If jobs are present, the Wizard will not start until all jobs are complete (i.e. usage, payment runs, billing runs still processing). Click the link within the popup to address the Background Jobs. 

Example: 

When finished, click Generate & Close at the bottom of the pop up. 

When the Wizard does not detect any open jobs, the following displays. Click Close. 

3. The Wizard requires all Draft Invoices dated in the current period and transactions without Journal Entries to be Posted. Click the link provided in the pop up to address items that must be addressed: 

• Post Draft invoices by drilling into each Invoice. 
• Post Revenue Schedules and other transactions by clicking Close or Next. 
  • The Close button appears if no foreign currency adjustments are required. If foreign currency adjustments are required, a Next button displays. 
  • The Close or Next button only become available once all Draft Invoices are either posted or deleted within the period.

Note: Move on to the next step when foreign currency transactions exist. Otherwise, the Financial Period is automatically closed. An email is automatically generated and sent to the user upon successful close. 

4. Depending on the Multi-Currency Accounting features enabled, the Wizard will perform the following processes: 

• Automate Unrealized Gain / Loss for Foreign Currency Transactions: The Wizard will post any foreign currency gains/losses on open Invoices (Invoices with a status of Posted and not yet Paid). 
• Adjust Deferred Revenue for Foreign Exchange: The Wizard will adjust deferred revenue when different exchange rates are used to convert billing schedules and revenue schedules.
• Read more in Adjust Deferred Revenue for Foreign Exchange.

5. Click Generate & Close to initiate the process of calculating and posting the foreign exchange transactions. Corresponding entries created during this process can be reviewed in the Financial Period screen upon completion. 

Note: Once the Generate & Close process is initiated, the Consolidated Rates table and Daily Rates table is locked for any further editing. 

Once Generate & Close has successfully completed, the Financial Period is automatically closed. An email is automatically generated and sent to the user. 

Closed Financial Period Summary Entries 

The Summary Entries screen includes a section for Balance Summary, Summary Entries, and a  section is provided to capture Journal Entry types for the foreign currency transactions. 

Reopen a Closed Financial Period

Important: In a closed Financial Period, the following actions are prevented: 

• Editing transactions dated in the closed period 
• Creating new transactions dated in the closed period
• Exception: If Subscriptions/Orders don’t create Journal Entries, new Subscriptions or Orders can be created in the closed period, but Billing Schedule Lines and Revenue Schedule Lines will post the invoice and revenue recognition journals in the next open period.

To perform either of these actions in a closed period, the period must first be reopened. Complete the steps below to reopen a Financial Period.  

Steps: 

1. Navigate to Menu > Finance > Financial Periods. 
2. Click Open from the Actions menu for the desired Financial Period. 
   
   
3. Complete the Close Financial Period Wizard steps as described above. 
4. All steps and data are unlocked until the user progresses through the wizard again and completes each step.
5. To close the period again, the Financial Period Close Wizard is required.