Initially, use this screen to set up the accounting periods within each fiscal year. Once you begin using the system, you can use this screen to add or open new accounting periods. See the documentation for the No of Periods to Keep Open checkbox in the G/L Settings screen.
You should have already set up the fiscal year in the Fiscal Years screen before you set up accounting periods. You must set up accounting periods in this screen before you can enter subperiods and transactions.
Choose a fiscal year from the drop-down box. If the desired fiscal year is not available, set it up in the Fiscal Years screen, then return to this screen.
Enter the period number you need to add, or use Query or Find to access a period which already exists. You can have up to 18 accounting periods per fiscal year and up to 99 subperiods.
There are only two limitations regarding how many subperiods can be assigned to a given accounting period. The first limitation is the limit of 99 total subperiods within a fiscal year. The second limitation is based on the number of days within the accounting period, because each subperiod must have its own unique ending date.
One subperiod is set up automatically when you add an accounting period. If you require project reports more frequently than once each accounting period, you can also set up weekly, semi-monthly, or bi-weekly subperiods.
We advise that you set up the last closed period when initializing this screen. For example, assume you have decided to use four subperiods within each period, and you are currently initializing period 1 of fiscal year 2000 as your current open period. We advise that you also add period 1 of 1998 to represent period 12 of fiscal year 1999 as your last closed period. (Because a period 12 cannot exist without periods 1 through 11, period 1 of 1999 will hold the information of period 12, 1999.)
Costpoint uses these dates in many modules to validate transaction dates. In the example above, let's assume that the subperiod ending date for period 12, subperiod 4 is 12/31/1999. You would enter into Costpoint that period 1, subperiod 4, 1999 had a period ending date of 12/31/1999. The subperiod ending date for period 1, subperiod 1, 2000 is 01/07/2000. When you enter transactions into period 1, subperiod 1, 2000, Costpoint will validate the transaction dates against these dates to ensure that transactions entered into this period have a date between 01/01/2000 and 01/07/2000.
If the last closed subperiod is not added, Costpoint is unable to perform this validation. Therefore, in the example above, transactions with dates between 01/01/01 and 01/07/98 would be accepted when entered into period 1, subperiod 1.
Enter the last day of the accounting period. It must be a valid date and later than the immediately preceding accounting period end date. Depending upon your company's choice of date format in the System Settings screen in Costpoint System Administration, you should enter the date in one of the following formats: MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, or YYYY/MM/DD. It will be stored with the appropriate century.
Use the radio buttons in this group box to control whether data entry is allowed for a given accounting period. The default status is Not Available. When a period is not available, you cannot enter data into it. An Open status indicates that the accounting period is available for data entry.
The only time a change to the Accounting Periods screen can be duplicated in the Subperiods screen is when the status changes from Open to Not Available. In that instance, all subperiods and journal entry/edit statuses are also set to Not Available. However, if you change the status from Not Available or Closed to Open, you will also need to open the related subperiod(s) and journal entry/edit statuses individually in the Subperiods screen and Entry Edit Status subtask, respectively. (The system assigns the Closed status when you run the Close Periods program; you cannot manually change the status in this screen. The Close Periods program also sets the subperiod and journal entry/edit statuses to Not Available for the accounting periods that it closes.)
For previous periods in the first fiscal year, assign a status of Not Available.
Use this pushbutton to open the Entry Edit Status subtask, where you can allow or disallow entries into the various Costpoint transaction screens for a given accounting period.