Periods and locking
Understand the periods of a fiscal year, lock them once checked and know what the lock actually prevents.
Every fiscal year is divided into periods. Locking a period freezes what has been checked: no entry can be added to it, reversed or deleted as long as the lock is in place. This page explains how periods are created, how to lock them and what closing the fiscal year changes.
How a fiscal year is divided
When a fiscal year is created, NovaFisko automatically generates its periods:
| Period | Number | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | 0 | Dated the first day of the fiscal year. It receives the opening balance (balance sheet balances carried forward). |
| Monthly periods | 1 to 12 | One period per calendar month covered by the fiscal year ("January 2026", "February 2026"...). An extended or shortened fiscal year has as many periods as months started. |
| Closing | 99 | Dated the last day of the fiscal year. It receives the closing entry of the income statement accounts. |
When you save an entry, its period is derived from its date. You therefore have nothing to choose when entering it.
Periods are always monthly, even for a company file on the quarterly VAT regime. The VAT return simply groups three periods.
Locking a period
- Open the company file, then the Settings tab, Fiscal year / Chart of accounts section.
- In the list of fiscal years, open the Periods and closing dialog of the fiscal year concerned. The same dialog is accessible from the fiscal year selector of the company file.
- Each period shows its state: Open or Locked. Flip the switch of the period to freeze.
- The change is immediate. The list of fiscal years then shows the number of locked periods.
Locking and unlocking are recorded in the audit trail of the company file, with the user, the date and the period concerned.
What the lock prevents
On a locked period, NovaFisko refuses:
- the saving of a new entry (manual entry, invoice, miscellaneous operation, booking of a document or a bank transaction, depreciation charge): the message "Period … is locked" is displayed;
- the reversal of an entry dated in that period;
- the revert, from the history, of a change that would affect an entry of that period;
- the application of a change entered offline that targets that period: it is rejected at synchronisation with the reason "locked".
The lock does not prevent viewing, exports or the lettering of third-party items.
Lock a period as soon as its VAT return is validated. This prevents an invoice entered late from changing grids that have already been filed.
Unlocking a period
As long as the fiscal year is not closed, a locked period can be reopened from the same dialog. If the fiscal year is closed, unlocking a single period is refused ("Fiscal year … is closed"): the fiscal year must be reopened first.
Closing and reopening the fiscal year
The Periods and closing dialog also offers two actions on the whole fiscal year:
- Close fiscal year: all periods are locked at once and the fiscal year moves to the Closed status. No accounting entry is generated by this action.
- Reopen fiscal year: the periods are unlocked and the fiscal year becomes Open again. The operation is recorded in the audit trail.
This simple closing must be distinguished from the year end, which in addition posts the closing entry of the income statement accounts and the opening balance of the following fiscal year. Read the dedicated page before choosing.
Reopening a closed fiscal year makes periods editable again whose documents may have been handed to the client or to the authorities. The exports issued in the meantime carried the notice "Final document": issue them again after any correction.
Effect on exported documents
The status of exports depends directly on locking. A statement is marked Provisional document as long as the fiscal year is not closed and the periods covered are not all locked. Otherwise it becomes a Final document.