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Which months you can close, and in what order

The Periods rail on the Close tab lists your months, newest at the top, and exactly one of them is the month whose turn it is. This page explains where that list begins and ends, why only one month at a time offers Start close, and why you can reopen only the month you closed most recently.

Which months appear in the list​

The list runs from the first month of your accounting history through the current month, newest first. SKU.io works out where to begin in one of two ways:

  • If you have set an Accounting Start Date (Settings → General, under Accounting Start Date), the list begins with the month that date falls in.
  • If no start date is set, the list begins with the month of your earliest accounting entry.

Anything earlier than that is not listed at all. It is frozen history: it predates the point your books start, so there is no month row to select and nothing to close. Opening a link that names an earlier month doesn't create one either — the request is refused as history that predates your accounting start.

Months after the current one are never listed. The rail stops at the month you are in, because a month you are still living through is the last one you can work on. Asking for a later month directly is refused as a month in the future.

note

There is no "pre-cutover" row on the Close tab. If older material told you to close a cutover period first, ignore it — the rail shows only real, closable calendar months.

Months close oldest first​

Only the earliest month that isn't closed yet can be closed. In the Periods rail that month reads Open — up next (or In Review once you've started it); every other open month reads plain Open.

On the month whose turn it is, the primary button is live: Start close while the month is still Open, and Close period once it is In Review. On any later month the same button is greyed out, and hovering it explains why, naming the month that's actually next in line:

Close June 2026 first — periods close oldest-first.

That isn't only a screen restriction. If a later month's close is requested anyway, it is refused with the same reason, so there is no way around it from a bookmark or a second browser tab.

A quiet month still has to be closed. You can't skip a month because nothing much happened in it. Close it empty instead: start the close, let the checks run, and close it. A month with no activity usually walks straight through the checklist, so it takes a minute and keeps the sequence intact. See close a month.

A reopen can't cut in on a close that is already running. The order is protected from both ends: a close won't start unless its month is the one whose turn it is, and while a close is running every Reopen… is refused with A period close is running — wait for it to finish before reopening. So an earlier month can't be pulled back open underneath a later month's close, and you never have to unpick months that closed out of order. See only one close can run at a time.

Only the most recently closed month can be reopened​

A closed month shows Reopen… next to Verify. On every closed month except the latest one, that button is greyed out and its tooltip reads:

Only the latest closed period can be reopened — reopen later months first.

So to get back into March when April and May are also closed, you reopen them in reverse order: May, then April, then March.

The reason is the same rule seen from the other end. Your books are locked up to the furthest-forward closing date, not month by month. If you reopened March on its own, April's and May's locks would still cover March's dates and the month would stay locked — you would have removed the sign-off without regaining the ability to post into it. Reopening from the newest end backwards keeps the lock date and the month statuses telling the same story.

Reopening is not free: it asks for a reason for the audit trail, keeps the previous close snapshots but marks them stale, and clears the acknowledgements recorded at the previous close. See reopen a closed month.

Only one close can run at a time​

A close runs in the background and shows its progress in the job tray, so the Close tab stays usable while it works. Only one close can run at a time across your whole business:

  • A second close request while one is running is refused with "Another period close is already running — wait for it to finish."
  • While a close is running, no month offers Start close or Close period, and Reopen… is unavailable on every closed month. A reopen attempted anyway is refused because a close is running.
  • If two people press Close period at the same instant, one close starts and the other is refused. You never get two closes of the same month, and never two closes at once.

Close and reopen actions also take their turn one at a time behind the scenes, which is what makes the two rules above reliable when several people are working at month end. If an action can't take its turn within 15 seconds, it gives up rather than waiting indefinitely.

That particular refusal is the one case in the close that doesn't explain itself: it arrives as a plain red error with no reason attached, unlike the refusals above, which name the month or the close that's in the way. So when a close or reopen fails at month end with nothing useful on screen and several people are working at once, contention is the thing to suspect. Nothing is half-done when it happens — wait a moment and try again.

When there are no months to close yet​

A brand-new set of books has nothing to close, and the Close tab says so:

No accounting history yet Months appear here once your accounting start date is set and entries begin generating — then you can run a formal month-end close.

You see this in three situations:

  • No Accounting Start Date is set and no accounting entries exist yet.
  • An Accounting Start Date is set in the future. Accounting hasn't begun, so there is no closable month — not even the current one. The rail fills in once that date arrives.
  • Accounting entries exist but no start date is set. The list then begins at the month of your earliest entry, so the empty state disappears as soon as the first entry is generated.

If you expect months and see the empty state, check your Accounting Start Date first (Settings → General), then confirm entries are being generated — see how automatic accounting works.

The first month you close asks for your opening balance​

An opening balance is the set of account starting positions you carry in from before you kept books in SKU.io — what each account was worth on day one. Without it, the first month's Balance Sheet is missing its starting figures.

The Opening balance applied check, in the Data completeness section of the close checklist, is where that lands:

  • It is a Blocking check on the very first closable month only. If your opening balance is still a draft, that first close can't proceed until you finalise it in Accounting → Reconciliation → Starting Balances. It is one of the blocking checks that no permission or acknowledgement gets you past — see blocking checks and warnings.
  • Every later month shows the check as not applicable, in grey beneath its title: "Not applicable — an opening balance only applies to the first period you close, not this month." An opening balance is a books-start concern, not a monthly one.
  • If you never set one up, the check reads "Not applicable — no opening balance was set up for this books-start, so there is nothing to apply." on every month, including the first.

The first closable month is the month containing your Accounting Start Date — not necessarily the month you first entered data. If you set a start date of March 1 but only began entering orders in May, March is still the first month you close, and it is March's close that asks about the opening balance.

Next steps​

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