What does closing actually change?

It records a status and a frozen snapshot. It changes no invoice, payment or GST amount and executes no payment. Once closed, a settlement dated inside the period is refused until it is reopened.

Can I close the quarter before all three months are closed?

Yes, but the response lists open_child_months with a warning. Closing a child month afterwards does not retro-lock the parent's snapshot, so close the months first.

How do I close over a gap I know about?

The Periods screen offers to sign off over the gap with a reason once the close has been refused. The sign-off is recorded in the audit log and the completeness read still shows the break.

Which quarter is 2026-Q1?

July to September 2026, the first quarter of FY2027. Stored labels use the calendar year the quarter starts in; always read the displayLabel, which says Q1 (Jul to Sep 2026).

How-to guidesView as Markdown ↗

Close a month and a quarter

Closing is a sign-off, not a calculation: run_period_close snapshots the period's cash figures (received, ex-GST, GST, receipt count, outstanding AR) and locks them. Before writing anything it ties every bank line in the range by running balance and refuses with bank_completeness_failed if any fail. Close months first, then the quarter, then the financial year; a parent closed over an open child says so. A closed period is reopened with a required reason, corrected, and closed again, and the ladder marks any parent as stale until it is re-closed.

Before you close

Three reads tell you whether the month is ready:

Is the bank feed complete? get_period_completeness for the month. chain_intact: true with a non-zero line count means no line is missing. A first_break names the span and the gap in cents; import the missing window first. See the balance chain.
Is anything unworked? get_bookkeeper_worklist counts untriaged lines, unmatched credits and debits, purchases missing evidence, unpaired shoebox receipts and stale staged operations. A closed month with an unmatched deposit in it is legal, but it is a month you will reopen.
What will the figures be? get_month_end_status returns the close state (open, closed, reopened) and a live summary of received, ex-GST, GST, receipt count and outstanding AR.

Close the month

"Close September."

run_period_close with kind: "month" and any date inside the month. The tool computes the canonical span and label (2026-09) for you. In order:

Every bank line in the range is tied by running balance. A break refuses the close with bank_completeness_failed, naming the first break's date and the gap. No row is written.
The cash figures are snapshotted into the close record and the period is marked closed.
The response carries the snapshot and, if the covering quarter or year was already closed, notes that it is now stale.

On screen: Finance, then Periods, the month's card, "Close", then "Confirm close". If the chain is broken the screen names the break and offers "Sign off over the gap with this reason"; that sign-off is audit-logged.

Closing is idempotent per period: re-running re-snapshots the same row.

Close the quarter and the year

"Close the July to September quarter."

The same tool with kind: "quarter". Quarters follow the Australian financial year: Q1 is July to September, Q4 is April to June. The stored label uses the calendar year the quarter starts in, so FY2027's four quarters are 2026-Q1, 2026-Q2, 2027-Q3 and 2027-Q4. get_period_ladder returns both the stored label (pass it back to close or reopen) and the displayLabel a human should be told, Q1 (Jul–Sep 2026).

The ladder gate is soft: closing a quarter while a child month is open is allowed, and the response lists open_child_months with a warning. A child closed afterwards does not retro-lock the parent; close the months first and the roll-up is consistent by construction.

kind: "fy" closes the financial year, named by its end year (FY27 is 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027). A month, its quarter and the year are distinct closes and coexist.

Cross-check against another system

If the business still runs Xero or a spreadsheet for the same period, pass xero_peer_total_cents, the total that system reports as received. Biloh stores the signed variance on the close row. A non-zero variance without a variance_reason is refused with needs_variance_reason: true and the exact figures, so a close with a material difference and no explanation cannot exist. Omit the peer total and the close is recorded as unverified, never as reconciled.

Read the ladder

"What is closed for this financial year?"

get_period_ladder returns the twelve months, four quarters and the FY row with each one's state: open, closed, reopened, or stale. Stale means a child was reopened after this period was closed; re-close it to refresh the roll-up. Closed rows carry their frozen received and GST snapshot.

Reopen, correct, re-close

"Reopen September, a payment came in late."

reopen_period requires a reason and records who and when; that reason is the audit trail for why a signed-off month was touched. Make the correction (match the late deposit, settle the bill), then close again. The covering quarter and year go stale until they are re-closed. A period pack generated from the earlier close stays readable forever; a new one is minted as the next version and marked as superseding it.

What a close prevents

A settlement whose paid date falls inside a closed period is refused. A bill cannot be settled into a locked month by accident, and the figures an accountant has already been given cannot drift under them.

Last updated 2026-09-18