Re-Open Accounting Periods

Overview

The financial accounting close process is a lengthy process, involving a lot of reconciliations and number crunching. However, people do make mistakes, and if those mistakes happened in an accounting period that has already been closed, you might need to reopen that accounting period to fix the mistake.

Considerations about Re-opening Accounting Periods

Avoid reopening an accounting period unless it is absolutely necessary. To limit the possibility of reopening accounting periods, give only a few users permission to the function. Follow a strict process to make sure that no unintended transactions are introduced to the reopened accounting period.

Re-opening an accounting period can potentially result in unintended transactions getting added to the accounting period and can cause unintended financial impact. In Zuora, this can happen by inadvertently creating a back-dated transaction (for example, on 3/1/2012 creating a payment that's dated 2/1/2012), or by inadvertently canceling a transaction in the reopened period.

For example, let's say that you generated an invoice on 1/1/2012 for $450, for the service period 1/1/2012-1/31/2012. The invoice was determined to be bad debt, and so you then adjusted it on 2/1/2012 (a credit for $450). At that point, you closed the January and February accounting periods. But then on March 1, you received a payment to be applied to this invoice, meaning that the invoice was mistakenly accounted in bad debt.

To fix the mistake, you now need to reopen the February accounting period, cancel the adjustment made on 2/1/2012, and then apply the payment to the invoice. After doing that, you can close the February accounting period again.

Reopen an Accounting Period

Navigation: Navigate to Finance > Accounting Periods, and click the Accounting Periods tab.

1. Select a closed accounting period, and click the name of that accounting period for a detailed view. You can only reopen the most recently closed accounting period. 
2. On the accounting period detail page, select more > Re-open this Accounting Period.
3. Confirm that you want to reopen the accounting period. Click Yes. The accounting period is now open, and you can edit it to fix any errors, then run a trial balance and close it again.

Why can't I open a specific closed period?

You can only reopen the last closed accounting period. Once you opened an accounting period, then you can open the immediately previous accounting period.

For example, if you have the accounting periods January, February, March, and April, and have closed January, February, and March. You cannot reopen February until you reopen March, and you cannot reopen January until you reopen March and February.