Fiscal years and periods

A fiscal year is a company's accounting calendar — a dated window, split into monthly fiscal periods, that decides which dates a journal can post into. You create it once a year before the first transaction of the year, generate its periods, close the periods month by month as the books are reconciled, and finish with the year-end close that transfers profit or loss to retained earnings. The fiscal year record is also where the finance statements and statutory schedules for that year are run.

Overview

Every posting in xMatix — a manual journal, or the journal an invoice, bill, payment or stock movement generates — is placed in the fiscal period that covers its date. A period is either Open, Closed or Locked, and only an Open period accepts postings. The fiscal year above it has a status of its own, and a year that is not Open blocks postings into all of its periods, even the Open ones.

A fiscal year holds:

• Fiscal periods — one per calendar month of the year, numbered from 1, each with its own start date, end date and status.
• Fiscal days (optional) — one row per calendar date, flagged working or non-working from your holiday list and business hours, so a month's working-day count can be read and corrected.

When to use it

• Going live on Finance — create the current fiscal year and generate its periods before you post opening balances.
• Before each new year — create next year's fiscal year ahead of the first document dated in it.
• Each month-end — close the month's period once it is reconciled (see Closing a period).
• Year-end — post the closing journal with Close Year, then close or lock the last periods.
• Reporting — run the trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and the statutory schedules for the year from the fiscal year record (the day-to-day statement screens are described in Financial statements).

How xMatix handles it

• Periods are found by date and company. When a journal posts, xMatix looks for the period whose dates cover the journal date and that belongs to the journal's company. A period with no company applies to every company; if both exist, the company's own period wins.
• A missing calendar is created for you. If a document posts on a date that no period covers, xMatix creates an April–March fiscal year for that company with twelve Open monthly periods — named, for example, FY2026-27 — and posts into it. It never reopens a Closed or Locked period to do so.
• Draft journals get their period on save. A new journal, or a journal whose date changes, is given its period when it is saved; posting looks the period up again from the final date.
• Status gates posting at two levels. The period must be Open, and the fiscal year must be Open. Otherwise the save or post is refused with a message naming the period.
• Period statuses move only through actions. Close Period (Open → Closed), Reopen Period (Closed → Open) and Lock Period (Open or Closed → Locked). Locked is final: a locked period can never be reopened.
• Days follow their period. When a period is closed, reopened or locked, its fiscal days take the same status.

Prerequisites

• The company (the Partner Account) the calendar belongs to exists. If your organization runs a single company, the Partner Account field is hidden and you can leave it out.
• You have access to Fiscal Years in the Finance app's Settings area and the action permissions described under Permissions below.
• For Close Year: a retained-earnings GL account in the company's chart of accounts.
• For Generate Fiscal Days: your holidays and default business hours are set up, so working days are flagged correctly.

Procedure

Step 1 — Create the fiscal year

1. In the Finance app, open Settings and select Fiscal Years (under Company Structure).
2. Select New.
3. Enter the Name (required) — for example FY2026-27 — and choose the Partner Account the calendar belongs to.
4. Under Timeline, enter the Start Date and End Date.
5. Save.

The year opens with status Open. If the end date is not after the start date, the save is refused with Fiscal year end date must be after the start date.

Step 2 — Generate the periods

1. On the fiscal year record, select Generate Periods (it may be under the header's overflow of actions).
2. Confirm Create monthly Open periods for this fiscal year.

xMatix creates one Open period per calendar month from the start date to the end date, labelled by month (for example Apr 2026) and numbered 1, 2, 3 and so on. If the year starts or ends mid-month, the first or last period is shortened to match. Generate Periods runs only once per year: if the year already has periods it stops with Fiscal year already has periods.

Step 3 — Generate fiscal days (optional)

1. On the fiscal year record, select Generate Fiscal Days and confirm.
2. The action runs in the background and creates a day row for every date of the year, marked working or non-working from your holiday list and the default business hours.

Days that already exist are counted and left untouched, so you can run it again safely. If the year has no periods yet, it stops and asks you to generate the periods first. A background job keeps the working-day flag on future days in line with holidays you add, change or remove later.

Step 4 — Post through the year

You do not choose a period on a document — the date does. Keep the current month Open and, as each month is reconciled, close its period from the period record with Close Period. The full month-end routine is in Closing a period.

Step 5 — Close the year

1. Make sure every journal for the year is posted and the last period is still Open — the closing journal is dated on the last day of the year and posts into that period.
2. On the fiscal year record, select Close Year and confirm Post the year-end closing entry transferring P&L to Retained Earnings.

Close Year reads the year's profit and loss and posts one Closing journal, named CLOSE- followed by the year's name. It reverses every income and expense account with a balance and books the net profit (a credit) or loss (a debit) to the retained-earnings account. The journal is posted straight away. Close Year does not change the year's status and does not close any period.

The Close Year button on the record page does not ask for the retained-earnings account, so running it from the button stops with the message retainedEarningsGLAccountId is required to close the year. The action has to be run with that account supplied as an argument, for example through the xMatix API. Ask your administrator or implementation partner to run it.

Step 6 — Close or lock the last periods and the year

After the closing journal is posted and checked, close the remaining periods. Lock them once the year's statements are final. To stop all postings into the year at once, edit the fiscal year and set Status to Closed.

Step 7 — Run the year's statements

On the fiscal year record, the header actions include Trial Balance, Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Generate Cash Flow, General Ledger, Day Book, Bank Book, Cash Book, Comparative Statement, Generate Ar Ageing, Generate Ap Ageing and Generate Party Statement. Each one is computed live from the posted ledger for this year and this company. For the full statement screens with date and dimension filters, use the Statements area — see Financial statements.

Fields

Fiscal year

The record header shows Partner Account, Start Date and End Date. The Details tab shows the dates and status under Timeline, and who created and last changed the record under System Information.

Fiscal period

Business rules

• End after start. A fiscal year's end date must be after its start date.
• One generation per year. Generate Periods refuses a year with no valid dates and a year that already has periods. It does not top up missing months — delete the existing Open periods first if you need to regenerate.
• Monthly only. Periods are always calendar months; there is no quarterly or 4-4-5 option.
• Posting needs Open twice. The period covering the date must be Open and its fiscal year's status must be Open.
• Period transitions. Close Period works only on an Open period; Reopen Period only on a Closed one; Lock Period works on Open or Closed and moves straight to Locked.
• Locked is final. Any change that would move a period out of Locked is refused with A locked fiscal period cannot be reopened.
• Only Open periods can be deleted. Deleting a Closed or Locked period is refused with Closed or locked fiscal periods cannot be deleted.
• Automatic calendar. A posting date with no covering period creates an April–March year for the company with Open monthly periods.
• No overlap check. xMatix does not stop two fiscal years for the same company from overlapping. Keep each company's years back to back.
• Year-end close. Close Year needs a company on the year and at least one period. If the year has no income or expense balances it posts nothing. It does not check whether the year was already closed, so look for an existing CLOSE- journal before running it again.

Example

Lakeview Traders runs an April–March year.

1. In March 2026 the finance lead creates FY2026-27, Partner Account Lakeview Traders, Start Date 1 Apr 2026, End Date 31 Mar 2027, and selects Generate Periods. Twelve Open periods appear, Apr 2026 to Mar 2027.
2. They run Generate Fiscal Days; the year now shows each month's working days, with public holidays marked non-working.
3. On 5 May they reconcile April and select Close Period on Apr 2026. A supplier bill dated 28 April arriving on 7 May is refused, because its period is Closed. After approval, the accountant selects Reopen Period, posts the bill and closes April again.
4. In April 2027, with all journals for the year posted and Mar 2027 still Open, the year-end close is run with the Retained Earnings account. Journal CLOSE-FY2026-27 debits every income account, credits every expense account and credits the year's net profit to retained earnings.
5. They close Mar 2027, set the year's Status to Closed, and lock all twelve periods once the audited statements are signed off.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox:

1. Create a fiscal year named FY-TRAIN running from 1 Jan to 31 Dec of next year for your test company.
2. Select Generate Periods. Expected result: twelve Open periods, January to December, numbered 1 to 12.
3. Select Generate Periods again. Expected result: the message Fiscal year already has periods.
4. Open the January period and select Close Period, then Reopen Period. Expected result: Closed, then Open again.
5. Post a manual journal dated in January, then close January and try to post a second January journal. Expected result: the second post is refused because the period is Closed.

Quick reference

• Fiscal years live in Finance → Settings → Fiscal Years.
• One fiscal year per company per year; periods are always monthly.
• Generate Periods runs once per year.
• The journal date picks the period; you never choose it.
• Only Open periods in an Open year accept postings.
• Close → Reopen is allowed; Locked is final.
• Run Close Year while the last period is still Open.
• Close Year posts the closing journal but changes no status.

Permissions

What a user can do with fiscal years is set in their security profile:

• Entity permissions on Fiscal Year and Fiscal Period decide who can see, create, edit and delete them.
• Server actions — Generate Periods, Generate Fiscal Days, Close Year, Close Period, Reopen Period, Lock Period and each statement action — need an explicit grant on the profile's Actions tab. Standard New, Edit and Delete follow the entity permissions; every other action needs its own grant.

Grant the period and year-end actions only to the people who own the close; give report readers just the statement actions.

Configuration

• Fiscal years — Finance → Settings → Fiscal Years. Create one per company per year; the year's dates decide the monthly periods.
• Year status — the Status field on the fiscal year. Set it to Closed or Locked to stop all postings into the year; set it back to Open to allow them. Type the value exactly — any other text also blocks posting.
• Period status — the Close Period, Reopen Period and Lock Period actions on each fiscal period.
• Holidays and business hours — drive the working-day flag on fiscal days. Set them up before you run Generate Fiscal Days; later changes are applied to future days by the background holiday sync.
• Schedule III classifications — Seed Classifications on the fiscal year fills in the statutory statement line on the company's GL accounts from each account's type. By default it fills only accounts that have none.
• Organization shape — if We run multiple companies is off in Org Settings, the Partner Account field is hidden on fiscal years.
• Security profiles — grant the fiscal year and period actions as described under Permissions above.

Common problems

"Fiscal period '…' is Closed — posting is not allowed."

The document or journal date falls in a Closed or Locked period. Change the date to an Open period if the date is wrong. If it is right and the period is Closed, get approval, use Reopen Period, post, then close the period again. A Locked period cannot be reopened.

"Financial year for period '…' is Closed — posting is not allowed."

The period is Open but its fiscal year's Status is not Open. Check the status for a typo, or set it back to Open if the year really should accept postings.

"Fiscal year already has periods."

Generate Periods only runs on a year with no periods. Review the existing periods; to regenerate, delete them (only Open periods can be deleted) and run the action again.

"Fiscal year requires a valid start and end date to generate periods."

Fill in both dates on the fiscal year, with the end date after the start date, and run Generate Periods again.

"retainedEarningsGLAccountId is required to close the year."

Close Year was run without a retained-earnings account. The record-page button does not ask for one; the action has to be run with the account supplied by an administrator or implementation partner.

Generate Fiscal Days says the year has no periods yet

Run Generate Periods first. Days always belong to a period.

Documents posted into a year I did not create

A posting dated outside every existing period creates an April–March fiscal year automatically. Rename or adjust it as needed, and create future years ahead of time.

Common questions

Can I use a calendar-year or other non-April fiscal year?

Yes. The start and end dates are yours to choose — January to December, July to June, or any other range — and Generate Periods creates one period per calendar month inside it. The April–March pattern applies only to the year xMatix creates automatically when a posting date has no period. To avoid that, create each year before the first document dated in it. Periods are always calendar months; quarterly or 4-4-5 periods are not supported.

Does closing the year close the periods?

No. Close Year only posts the closing journal that moves the year's profit or loss to retained earnings. The periods keep their status, and the fiscal year's own Status is unchanged. Close the last periods with Close Period, lock them with Lock Period once the statements are final, and set the year's Status to Closed if you want to stop all postings into the year in one step.

What is the difference between Closed and Locked?

A Closed period refuses postings but can be reopened with Reopen Period for an approved correction. A Locked period also refuses postings and can never be reopened — xMatix rejects any change that moves it out of Locked, and it cannot be deleted. Use Closed at month-end and Locked once the period's figures are final, for example after audit or filing.

Do I need fiscal days?

Only if you need working-day counts per month. Postings, period closing and the statements all work from the periods alone. Fiscal days add one row per date, flagged working or non-working from your holidays and business hours, so a month's working days can be counted and individually corrected.

Related topics

• Closing a period
• Chart of accounts, books and periods
• Working with journals
• Financial statements
• Budgets and budget control
• Security profiles
• Fiscal Year — entity reference
• Fiscal Period — entity reference