Close the month

Before you start

• Finance is part of the Advanced plan. When your plan includes it, a “Finance” section appears in the sidebar.
• A finance role, to open the Finance workspace. Locking a month needs the separate period-close permission, which managing finance does not include: people without it see the “Lock” button greyed out. In the built-in set, administrators have it and so does the “finance_approver” role, which no group carries, so an administrator gives it to a person by hand. An administrator can also add the permission to another role.
• The month you are closing should be over. Zonitix opens the screen on last month for that reason.

Get the month ready

1. 1

   Step 1: Open the Close tab

   Go to FinanceFinanceClose. Choose the month in “Period”; the last six months are listed.

2. 2

   Step 2: Read the checklist

   The “Close checklist” card has five lines:

   • “All invoices reviewed”: no bill dated in the month is still held for review.
   • “All invoices approved”: no bill dated in the month is still waiting for approval.
   • “Match exceptions cleared”: no bill dated in the month has an open purchase-order exception.
   • “GL coding assigned”: whether every bill has an account code. GL is short for general ledger, your books; a GL code is the account a cost is booked to. This one does not stop you. A bill without a code is booked to the general expense account.
   • “Committed invoices”: how many of the month’s bills count as committed spend, out of all bills dated in the month. This one does not stop you either. If the first number is lower than the second, some bills are unfinished.

   The circle on the left shows how much of the month is ready. While anything is open, the button under it reads the number of items still open and cannot be clicked.

3. 3

   Step 3: Clear what is open

   Held bills are finished on the “Review” tab, bills awaiting approval on the “Approvals” tab, and exceptions on the “Match” tab. Come back to “Close” when the three lines show a tick.

   The checklist does not count bills that are still drafts or were rejected, and they do not stop the lock. Before you lock, open the “Ledger” tab and look for draft or rejected bills dated in the month. Submit the ones you still want recorded and see them through approval. After the lock they cannot be submitted, corrected or deleted.

Lock it and export

1. 4

   Step 4: Lock the month

   Click “Lock” followed by the month (for example “Lock 2026-09”). A window asks you to confirm and says how many bills will be booked. Read it, then click the “Lock” button in that window.

   Locking writes the accounting entries (journals) for every approved or paid bill dated in the month: the cost to its expense account, tax to a separate account where the bill showed tax, and the amount owed to accounts payable.

2. 5

   Step 5: Download the journals

   Click “EXPORT GL JOURNALS” and pick a layout: “Generic (full)”, “QuickBooks journal” or “Xero manual journal”. You get a CSV file (a plain spreadsheet file) to import into your accounting system. Zonitix does not send it anywhere.

3. 6

   Step 6: Mark the journals as handed over

   In the “GL SYNC” card, leave “Connector” on “Manual / file (CSV import)” and click “Sync journals”. This only marks the month’s journals as exported, so the card shows what is still pending. The other connectors in the list are not available: choosing one and clicking “Sync journals” gives an error and sends nothing.

   This step needs a role that can manage finance. Without it the “Connector” box and the “Sync journals” button are greyed out.

Correct something after the lock

1. 7

   Step 7: Post an adjusting entry

   A locked month is never reopened. To correct it, click “ADJUSTING ENTRY” (shown to people with the period-close permission). In the “Adjusting journal entry” window choose the “Debit GL account” and the “Credit GL account”, enter the “Amount (base currency)” and type the “Reason (required — recorded on the audit trail)”. Click “Post adjustment”.

   The entry is booked in the current month, not the locked one. If you are unsure which accounts to use, ask your accountant: the debit and credit accounts decide what the correction does.

What you should see

If something goes wrong

The Lock button is grey and the tooltip says "Requires the close_finance permission".

Your role can manage finance but cannot close a period. This is deliberate, so the person who approves and pays is not also the one who locks. Ask an administrator to give the period-close permission to the right role.

The button shows "… item(s) open" instead of Lock.

Something on the checklist is unfinished. Clear the held bills, the bills awaiting approval and the match exceptions for that month (step 3).

"Accounting period … is locked — no changes allowed."

Someone tried to change or delete a bill dated in a locked month, or to move a bill into one. Leave the bill as it is and post an adjusting entry instead (step 7).

"The current period … is locked — an adjustment needs an open period."

The current month has been locked, so there is nowhere to book the correction. Post it once the next month has started.

"GL code '…' is not in the chart of accounts."

The account you picked for the adjusting entry does not exist in your list of accounts. Choose one from the list.

You locked the current month by mistake.

It cannot be unlocked. Bills dated later this month cannot be processed, and adjusting entries are refused until next month begins. Zonitix warns about this in the confirmation window when the month you picked is the current one.

Still stuck? See When something goes wrong, or Contact Zonitix support.

Where next

• Import bills and export the ledger
• Capture and approve a bill
• Match bills to purchase orders
• Roles, groups and permissions