Use Accounting Periods

Overview

Accounting Periods is a set of controls that allow you to define when transactions can be created, edited, or deleted. You control when a period is open or closed to ensure your accounting records are accurate and complete. Accounting Periods also includes a new suite of permissions so you can customize what employees can edit and when.

Things to know

• When an Accounting Period is closed, none of its transactions can be edited or exported.

• Accounting Periods are automatically assigned a sequential number and name, which is the period's date. These can't be edited.

• When exporting transactions from the batch transactions screen, the accounting period for the exported transactions are also marked as closed. This means you can no longer edit exported transactions. However, if you have the Open Period and Close Period permissions, you can open the accounting periods. When you open an accounting period, you can edit transactions previously exported.

• You can still edit invoice summaries even in closed periods.

Enable Accounting Periods

To start using this feature, set up:

• Accounting Periods in Settings .

• Employee permissions.

Set up Accounting Periods

To access Accounting Period settings:

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings.

2. In the side panel, click Accounting > Accounting Periods. 

Fiscal Year

The Fiscal Year section allows you to choose the starting month for your Accounting Year and Income tax year. To set your Fiscal Year settings:

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings.

2. In the side panel, click Accounting > Accounting Periods.

3. On the Accounting Period screen that opens, under the Accounting Year dropdown, select a month from the Starting Month dropdown. 

4. Click Save Changes.

Accounting Period

The Accounting Period section allows you to enable Auto-close and set exceptions. This section also lets you turn on the option to automatically close transactions when you export them.

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings.

2. In the side panel, click Accounting > Accounting Periods.

3. On the Account Periods screen that opens, click Enable Auto-close. 

4. Select which transactions you want from the Transaction Type dropdown.

5. Select if you want Auto-close to occur on a Day of the month or Day of the week from the Auto-close On dropdown.

6. Select the day of the month or day of the week from the Day of the month/week dropdown.

7. If you want exceptions to the general Auto-close rule, click Add Exception and repeat steps 4-6 for each exception.        

   Note: The Transaction Type dropdown is named Exception Type # for exceptions.

8. Click Save Changes. 

Enable auto-close on export

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings.

2. In the side panel, click Accounting > Accounting Periods.

3. On the Account Periods screen that opens, go to the Accounting Period section.

4. Click the Enable Close Transaction on Export toggle.

5. When finished, click Save Changes. 

Set Accounting Period permissions

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, click People > Employees.

3. On the Employees screen that opens, click Edit for the employee you want to change Accounting Periods permissions for.

4. Click the Permissions tab.

5. Scroll down to Accounting and find the Accounting Periods sub-section.        

   Tip: You can also find this section by entering Period in the permission search.

      

Accounting Periods permissions

• Accounting Period Management: Grants complete control over all activities on the Accounting Period Management screen.

• View Accounting Periods: Allows access to view accounting periods without making any changes.

• View Accounting Period Details: Allows access to view accounting periods by transaction type without making any changes.

• Open Period: Use to reopen previously closed periods, if necessary.

• Close Period: Allows closing periods at the monthly level.

• Open Transaction Type: Use to reopen previously closed transaction types, if necessary.

• Close Transaction Type: Allows closing periods at the transaction type level.

• Accounting Period Settings: Grants complete control over Accounting Period settings.

• View Accounting Period Settings: Allows viewing of Accounting Period settings only.

• Edit Accounting Period Settings: Allows editing of Accounting Period settings only.

View Accounting Periods

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. In the side panel, click Accounting Periods. 

3. On the Accounting Periods screen that opens, click the Period # you want to view. The Accounting Period expands into a sub-list where you can view each Transaction Type and its Status. 

4. To collapse the Accounting Period, click the Period # again.        

   Tip: You can also collapse the Accounting Period by clicking the arrow under the Actions column.

Accounting Period status

An accounting period can be under one of the following statuses:

• Open: When an accounting period is open, you can add, edit, or update transactions such as invoices, payments, or credits. This allows you to make changes to your financial records as needed during that time.

• Closed: When an accounting period is closed, you can no longer add or edit transactions such as invoices, payments, or credits. This ensures that the financial records are final and can't be changed for that period.

• Partially Closed: This status indicates while the accounting period is open, a transaction within that period was automatically closed due to that transaction being marked as Exported.

Open and close Accounting Periods

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. In the side menu, click Accounting Periods. 

3. On the Accounting Periods screen that opens, find the Accounting Period you want and click Actions. 

4. On the Actions dropdown, click Open Period or Close Period.        

   Note: If an Accounting Period is manually closed, the user who performed that action appears under the Closed By column.

Reopen a closed accounting period

Note: You need the Open Period permission to reopen a previously closed accounting period.

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. In the side menu, click Accounting Periods.

3. On the Accounting Periods screen that opens, find the Accounting Period you want and click Actions > Open Period.

4. The status of the accounting period updates to Open.

Open and close Transaction Types

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. In the side menu, click Accounting Periods. 

3. On the Accounting Periods screen that opens, click the Period # you want to view. The Accounting Period expands into a sub-list where you can view each Transaction Type and its Status. 

4. Find the Transaction Type you want and click Actions . 

5. On the Actions dropdown, click Open Transaction Type or Close Transaction Type.        

   Note: If a Transaction Type is manually closed, the user who performed that action appears under the Closed By column.

6. Repeat steps 4-5 for each Transaction Type you want to open or close.

Note: Selecting Close Through Date from the Actions menu on transaction types with an Export Type of Journal Entry Summary or Journal Entry Detail in the Journal Entries and Auto-Batching settings screen will mark those transactions as Exported.

Review Accounting Period status on invoices

In addition to seeing the open/closed status on Transaction Types in the Accounting Periods screen, you can also view them on individual transactions.

Note: When an invoice is manually exported without using Touchless Integration, the invoice is marked as Closed. This results in the accounting period to be marked Partially Closed.

To check if an invoice's Accounting Period is open or closed:

1. Search for the invoice in ServiceTitan.

2. On the invoice screen that opens, check the Period Status and Post Date.         

   Note: If the invoice's job is still in progress, the Period Status and Post Date statuses are blank.

Review Accounting Period status on Payables

To check if a bill, credit, or payment's Accounting Period is open or closed:

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. In the side menu, click Bills, Credits, or Payments.

3. Find the transaction you want and click it. 

4. On the transaction screen that opens, check the Period Status. 

Editing exported transactions in an open period

When Accounting Periods is enabled and a financial record has a status of Exported while the accounting period is still open, editing the record triggers a confirmation prompt. The prompt warns that changes to the record may need to be manually updated in your accounting software.

Review the prompt and verify the transaction in your accounting software after saving changes. This applies to all accounting integrations and all financial record types.

Want to learn more?

• Visit ServiceTitan Academy and enroll in Accounting Basics

• See Accounting