An accounting period is one posting period of a fiscal year in Business Central, usually a month, with the first period of the year flagged as a new fiscal year.
An accounting period is one posting period of a fiscal year, most often a calendar month. The first period of a year carries a new fiscal year flag, which is how Business Central knows where a fiscal year begins and ends. Periods drive period based reporting and year end closing, and they do not by themselves prevent anyone from posting.
Press Alt+Q and search for Accounting Periods. The create year action generates the periods of a fiscal year from a starting date, a number of periods and a period length. The close year action marks a year as closed and locks its period dates. The settings that actually block postings are the allowed posting dates in General Ledger Setup and, per user, in User Setup.
For a company with a calendar fiscal year you run create year with starting date 01.01.2027, 12 periods and a period length of 1M, which produces monthly periods with the new fiscal year flag on 01.01.2027. Once the 2026 figures are approved, you close the 2026 year, then run the close income statement job, which prepares journal lines dated with the closing date of 31.12.2026 that move the result to the equity account, for example 3200, and you post those lines.
The biggest misconception is that closing a year stops postings in it. It does not: closing records the status, while the allowed posting dates keep people out. Another frequent issue is posting an ordinary entry dated in 2026 after the closing entry has been posted, which leaves the equity account short by that amount until the close income statement job is run again for the difference. Creating the next fiscal year too late also breaks period comparisons and reports that read the period table.
A workable routine is to keep the allowed posting dates narrowed to the current period in General Ledger Setup, and to grant the accounting team a wider range through User Setup so adjustments stay possible while everyone else is locked out. Create the next fiscal year a few weeks before it starts, so period comparisons and any batch job that reads accounting periods behave correctly from day one.
Set the allowed posting dates in General Ledger Setup to the current period, and give exceptions to individual users in User Setup. Closing an accounting period alone does not block posting.
No. You can post in the new fiscal year while the previous one is still open, and run the year end closing later once the figures are final.
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