Table of Contents

• Overview
• Create a Financial Period
• Import Financial Periods
• Review Financial Period
• Close or Reopen a Financial Period

Overview

Financial Periods are a tool provided by Ordway to assist with Finance and Accounting functions and reporting.  Financial Periods allow a user to organize periods of time according to financial and reporting needs. Financial Periods can be created via import template or done manually in Ordway.

Financial periods can be any period of time, often Months or Quarters. The start and end dates of the Financial Period provide parameters for which transactions appear for which Financial Period.

Transaction types included and reported in a Financial Period:

• Invoices (Status = Posted or Reversed)
• Credits (Status = Processed, or Reversed)
• Payments (Processed or Reversed)
• Refunds (Succeeded or Reversed) 

Review our Month End Reporting Best Practices article for additional Financial Period tips. 

Create a Financial Period

Preconditions:

Finance must be enabled via Menu > Setup > Finance.

Steps:

1. Navigate to Menu > Finance > Financial Periods.
2. Click Add to manually add a Financial Period. Or skip to the next section on Importing Financial Periods. 
   
   
3. Define the Name, Fiscal Year, Start Date and End Date of the Financial Period.
   
   
4. Save when finished. 

Import Financial Periods

Steps:

1. Navigate to Menu > Finance > Financial Periods.
2. Select Import Financial Periods from the More menu.

3. Populate the template and import Financial Periods to Ordway.

Review Financial Period

All Financial Periods, whether open or closed, are available for review.  Reviewing a Financial Period provides the context of what transpired during a particular period of time.  It details the balances of Invoices, Credits, and Payments from the period as well as a summary view of journal entries.

Note: Financial Periods can be reopened when there is a need to apply retroactive adjustments. 

Steps:

1. Navigate to Menu > Finance > Financial Periods.
2. Select a specific Financial Period.
3. From this page, click into the detail of the balances and journal entry line items. Click Edit to make changes. 

Close or Reopen a Financial Period

Read about our new Financial Period Close Wizard.

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.