You can set a "Close Books" date so that once you are ready to close the books on a period within your accounting system, you can ensure that no more invoices from prior periods will be posted to that period. This will help keep MarginEdge in sync with your accounting system and past financial reports.
How to Setup
When you are ready to close your books for the current period, go to the main menu and select Accounting > Close Books. There you can enter the "Accounting Period Closed Date", which is the last date of the period you are closing. Once you enter and save, for any invoice uploaded with a date equal to or prior to that date, MarginEdge will automatically adjust the invoice date to the next day.
For example, if you are using calendar month periods, when you are ready to close the January period, you would go to "Close Books" and enter 1/31/2022. At this point, if an invoice with dates in January or before is uploaded to MarginEdge, the invoice date will be automatically adjusted to 2/1, all expenses from that invoice will populate in the reporting for February, and it will be posted to your accounting system showing the new date.
Any invoice closed to the following period from this feature will show the Invoice Date date in red (as opposed to black), but will show the accurate Upload Date.
How Frequently Should I Close My Books?
To help you understand more about the why and when of closing your books, see this article: Closing the Books - How frequently? Checklists to help keep you on track are also available!
How Does This Affect Bill Pay?
For an invoice that has the posting date adjusted due to the books being closed, when it moves to Bill Pay, you will see the due dates based on the original invoice date. For example, if you closed the books on 1/31 and an invoice dated 1/15 was uploaded on 2/10, the invoice date would show as 2/1, but the due date for Bill Pay would calculate from 1/15, making it due on 1/25 for a vendor with Net 10 terms.
Why Am I Getting Errors?
If you are attempting to enter a Close Books date but there are invoices with dates on or before the Close Date you entered that haven't been closed or sent to your accounting system, you will not be allowed to set the date.
To fix this:
- If they are in Invoice Approval, be sure to approve them first to get them ready for export.
- You must export those invoices from MarginEdge, and then you can set the Close Books date.
- You can also choose to edit an invoice date if you just want that invoice excluded in this posting period. [How to change your Invoice Number or Invoice Date]
If you are using Invoice Approval and wanting to edit an invoice that has the posting date adjusted as a result of the Closed Books feature, you can still edit the invoice date, but you will not be able to edit the posting date.