This topic contains information about managing accounting periods in Aptify. An accounting periods is a reporting tool to aggregate general ledger (GL) batch data into groups (typically based on batch effective date) to review activity on a per account basis. By associating batches with an accounting period, you can review transaction information for a particular time frame across Orders, Payments, and Scheduled Transactions in one form.

When running the Batch wizard, you have an opportunity on the last step to associate the batch with an Open Accounting Period. By default, the wizard will select the Open accounting period with the lowest ID whose date range includes the batch's effective date. Then during batch export, you are given an opportunity to include the Accounting Period data in the batch file if desired (by checking the appropriate box in the Export dialog).

If it turns out that the batch is associated with the wrong accounting period, you can modify the batch's accounting period affiliation at any time by running the Update Accounting Period entity bulk operation from a Batches list view. (By default, only members of the Accounting and Administrators groups can see and execute this entity bulk operation.)

In addition Accounting Periods support parent/child relationships so accounting data rolls up automatically form child periods to the parent. For example, if you create three accounting periods for October to December 2011 (one per month), you could use a parent Q4 accounting period to aggregate data for the three month period into a single reporting structure.

The following sections contain the procedures used to manage accounting periods in Aptify:

• Creating an Accounting Period
• Creating Parent Periods
• Linking Batches to an Accounting Period

Creating an Accounting Period

Follow these steps to create a new Accounting Periods record:

1. Navigate to the Accounting Periods service in the Accounting Application.
2. Open a new Accounts Periods record.
3. Provide the Name for the Accounting Periods record.
   • Typically this is the name of the period of time you're tracking, such as "March 2012 Period".
      
4. Select a Status, the default is set to Open.
   • You can close it later once all of the appropriate batches have been associated with it.
   • Note that you can open and close the period as needed.
      

5. If this Accounting Periods record is a child of another period, specify the parent accounting period in the Parent field. 

   If you use the parent roll-up, keep in mind that for performance reasons, Aptify caches the roll-up information. So, you may need to close and reopen your Aptify session in order to refresh a parent Accounting Period to reflect recent batching activity.

6. Specify the currency for this accounting period in the Currency field.

   For Multi-Currency Environments

   Aptify recommends that you create currency-specific Accounting Periods rather than attempt to associate batches in multiple currencies to the same accounting period (in which case, the aggregated amounts will not be accurate). Then, only associate a batch with an Accounting Period of the same currency. The Batch wizard's Accounting Period selection logic also respects this condition 

7. Specify the Start and End Dates for this accounting period.
8. Save and Close the record.
   

Creating Parent Periods

Accounting Periods support parent/child relationships so accounting data rolls up automatically from child periods to the parent. For example, if you create three accounting periods for October to December 2011 (one per month), you could use a parent Q4 accounting period to aggregate data for the three month period into a single reporting structure. 

However, if you use the parent roll-up, keep in mind that for performance reasons, Aptify caches the roll-up information. So, you may need to close and reopen your Aptify session in order to refresh a parent Accounting Period to reflect recent batching activity. 

To create a parent accounting period, create a new accounting period as per the instructions in Creating an Accounting Period. However for a Parent period a user will specify the top area values but associate no batches with that parent roll-up period.

Linking Batches to an Accounting Period

When creating a GL batch for Orders, Payments, and Scheduled Transactions using the Aptify Batch wizard, you can assign a batch to an Accounting Period.