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What is financial lock?

Financial lock can be used by business owners and Accountant - Full Access users to help close the books after a fiscal period is completed, especially after completing a tax filing. Financial lock, once activated, stops changes being made to your bills, credits, expenses, expense refunds, invoices, invoice payments, manual journal entries, and other income during a past period. This ensures your financial data is not inadvertently changed once the period has been reviewed and locked. Financial lock can also be unlocked anytime to make changes as needed.

 

 

Financial Lock

To activate financial lock, use the below steps as an owner or an Accountant - Full Access user:

  1. Go directly to Accounting preferences here, or select the Settings section
  2. Under Advanced Preferences, select Accounting
  3. The Lock Date is by default set to your Fiscal Year End date if it’s your first time activating, or to the previously set lock date set - if needed, adjust to any past date before today
  4. Slide the toggle next to Financial Lock to turn it on, the changes will save automatically.
    SettingsAccountingFinancialLock.png

 

When financial lock is activated, the following actions are deactivated:

Bank Reconciliation

Unmatched TransactionsMatched Transactions

Unavailable actions:

  • Mark as Expense Refund

Unavailable actions:

  • Unmatch expense refunds

 

Bills

Active and Archived BillsBill PaymentsDeleted Bills

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Change Category
  • Change Vendor
  • Delete

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Delete

Unavailable actions:

  • Undelete

 

Credits

Active Credits

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Delete

 

Expenses

Active and Archived ExpensesQuick ExpensesDeleted Expenses

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Change Category
  • Change Merchant
  • Change Client or Project
  • Change Taxes
  • Mark as Bill Payment
  • Attach Receipt
  • Delete

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Attach Receipt
  • Delete

Unavailable actions:

  • Undelete

 

Invoices

Draft Invoices

Sent or Viewed Invoices

Deleted Invoices

Unavailable actions:

  • Add a Payment
  • Edit
  • Send by Email
  • Share via Link
  • Mark as Sent
  • Assign to Project

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Mark as Sent
  • Assign to Project
  • Delete

Unavailable actions:

  • Undelete


Note: Draft invoices do not appear in reports until sent by email, marked as sent, shared via link, or until a payment is applied to the invoice. As a result, these actions, along with editing, are unavailable when draft invoices are locked to ensure your reports remain accurate.

 

Invoice Payments

Invoice Payments

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Refund
  • Delete

 

Manual Journal Entries

Manual Journal Entries

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit

 

Other Income

Other Income

Unavailable actions:

  • Edit
  • Delete

 

FAQs

How do I close the books at the end of the fiscal year?

FreshBooks moves Net Income from prior fiscal years into Retained Earnings on the Balance Sheet automatically. You can use the below options to manage your books:

  • Set a Fiscal Year End in your basic information settings to get additional date range filters in your reports (especially if you have a year end date that is different from Dec 31)
  • View the amounts for each fiscal period by running most accounting reports filtered to a specific date range, historical reports can also be run to view prior period amounts and to make adjustments any time
  • Export your accounting reports periodically to save offline copies to use for comparison
  • Lock your invoices and expenses to prevent changes after closing the books

 

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