Locking Fiscal Periods In Sage ACCPAC 6.0

Sage ERP Accpac Version 6.0 allows users to lock fiscal periods for all modules, or a specific module. Let’s take a look at the benefits and functionality of this new capability.

Lock Fiscal Periods By Module

In previous versions, you could only lock or unlock fiscal periods for all modules. With the new capability, modules can be locked down in sequence, preventing posting to operational modules while allowing you to complete processing in financial modules. This added level of security will prevent unauthorized or accidental posting of transactions to specific fiscal years and periods separately for each module (e.g. AP, AR, etc.). The feature has been implemented so you will no longer need to spend time trying to locate transactions that are creating out of balance conditions.

Smooth Transaction Flow

To ensure the proper flow of transactions, the operational modules must be locked before locking financial modules. So when operational transactions in Order Entry, Purchase Order, and Inventory Control are all entered and posted for a period, you can lock these modules for that fiscal period. In this way the normal process of report printing and reconciliation in the financial modules ñ AR, AP, and General Ledger can be completed at your convenience and with confidence that no new transactions accidentally can be posted to them.

Bank Services is the other area to consider in transaction flow. Data flows back and forth between Bank Services, AP, AR, and Payroll, so all of these modules should have their fiscal periods locked at the same time.

Security For Fiscal Periods

Users must have security rights to the Maintain Fiscal Calendar task to lock and unlock fiscal periods and modules in the Fiscal Calendar. You can specify what the user experience will be when they try to enter a transaction into a locked period. Within Common Services, you can select for users to receive either an error message or a warning message. With the error message, the user will received an error message and be prevented from creating a transaction. If you select a warning message, the user can still proceed and bypass the warning and post to a locked period.

Fiscal Calendar Report

To accommodate the new options, the Fiscal Calendar report now prints in landscape format. It prints information for all periods, including the Adjustment and Closing periods, in rows, and includes a column for each activated Sage ERP Accpac module.

Locked Periods When Upgrading

When upgrading to 6.0, fiscal year locking is defaulted as follows:

• For fiscal years that were active prior to upgrading, the fiscal periods will be locked or unlocked for the new programs in Version 6.0, consistent with the locks in the earlier version.
• For fiscal years that were inactive prior to upgrading, fiscal periods will be locked for the new programs in Version 6.0.
• If activating applications in Version 6.0 for the first time, for all fiscal years, the default status is unlocked.

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