Period closure / year-end closing

What is this?

With Period closure you definitively close a booking period (usually quarter or fiscal year). All entries of this period are locked — no one can edit or delete them anymore. This is a central compliance requirement: bookkeeping once closed must remain unchanged.

The closure provides certainty: you can base reports, tax returns and donation receipts on locked data, without anyone tampering with the figures later.

Typical occasions for a period closure:

• Quarterly closure — e.g. for VAT pre-declaration
• Year-end closure — required at fiscal year end, prerequisite for tax return and general meeting
• Special closure — e.g. on board change or handover to a new treasurer

How to perform a period closure

1. Complete all open tasks — all bank transactions imported, all reconciliations done, all receipts uploaded.
2. Open Administration > Cashbook > Period closure.
3. Choose the period — quarter or fiscal year.
4. See the pre-check — Chorilo shows open items that should be done before closure.
5. Resolve the hints — missing receipts, open reconciliations, unclear entries.
6. Click Close period.
7. Confirm in the dialog by entering your password (as a safety measure).
8. Done. The period is now write-protected.

What happens after closure

• All entries of the period are unchangeable.
• In the audit log the closure event is documented (who, when, which period).
• Reports are frozen — the values do not change anymore.
• Donation receipts for the period remain permanently valid.
• Corrections only work via correction entries in the current period.

Correction entries after closure

If you find an error after closure:

1. Create a new entry in the current period.
2. Label it clearly as correction with reference to the original event.
3. For the booking amount: use a difference or reversal entry.
4. Justify in the purpose — e.g. "Correction of entry 2025-145 from 12.11.2025, typo in amount".

Permission

You need cashbook.edit. Due to the impact we recommend that only board and treasurer perform period closures.

Tips

• Do the year-end closure only once all transactions of the fiscal year are fully captured — usually February or March of the following year, since bank transactions from end of December sometimes lag.
• Right after the closure create the compliance export for the tax advisor.
• Run a plausibility check of the balances before every closure — compare with the real bank account balances.
• Never close twice for safety — the second closure runs idle and only causes confusion in the audit log.