Closing a period is the formal accounting act of saying 'these books are final'. Once locked, Vendly refuses to post any journal entry — direct or automatic — with a date inside the locked window. That's how you protect a month's reported figures after you've shared them with the bank, the auditor or KRA.

Why period locks matter

• Reports are reproducible — re-running the May P&L in October gives the same numbers as the one you sent the bank in June.
• Auditors don't have to chase 'late entries' creeping into closed months.
• VAT and PAYE submissions stay reconcilable with the trial balance for the period filed.
• Mistakes that would have silently corrupted historical figures throw a visible error instead.

Monthly close checklist

1. All invoices for the period are issued (no DRAFT invoices for sales that happened in the period).
2. All purchase invoices for the period are recorded.
3. All payment receipts are matched against invoices — AR control account agrees to the AR list.
4. All supplier payments are recorded — AP control account agrees to the AP list.
5. Payroll for the month is run, approved AND paid.
6. GRNs are matched against purchase invoices — GRN Clearing balance is near zero.
7. Bank reconciliation done — every bank statement line matched to a transaction.
8. M-Pesa reconciliation done — every Mpesa statement entry matched.
9. Depreciation and any other recurring journals have posted for the month.
10. Stock take done (or at least cycle count) and variance journal posted.
11. Trial balance reviewed — debits = credits, no suspicious negative balances.
12. Lock the period.

Year-end additions

• Full stock take across every warehouse, signed off.
• Fixed asset register reconciled — additions, disposals, depreciation.
• Accruals and prepayments adjusted to actual.
• Foreign-currency balances revalued at year-end rate (FX gain/loss journal).
• All PAYE / SHIF / NSSF / AHL returns for the year are filed.
• Issue P9s to every employee.
• Lock all months of the year, then lock the year.

Where the locks live

Settings → Accounting Periods shows every closed period with the user who closed it and when. Any auto-posting from invoices, payroll or GRNs into a closed period will fail with a clear error pointing at the period and prompting either backdating the source document or reopening the period.