What You Need to Know About MoneyWorks Period Management

"I'd like to add a new period, but the New button is greyed out!"

If you've ever stared at that screen in confusion, you're not alone. It's one of the most common questions we hear from MoneyWorks users—and the answer usually comes down to how periods are being managed. Once you understand how period management works, it becomes far less mysterious.

What Is an Accounting Period?

An accounting period is simply a defined timeframe for recording and reporting transactions—typically one month. Most businesses divide their financial year into 12 periods, one for each month. Some use 13, reserving the extra one for audit adjustments at year-end.

One thing worth noting: period 1 is not always January. It depends on your financial year-end. If your year runs from April to March, period 1 is April.

Setting Up Your Financial Year

When you create a new MoneyWorks file, one of the first things you'll do is define your financial year. Get this right from the start—it's not something you can change later once transactions have been posted.

If you set up a standard calendar year and then later decide to switch to an April–March year, you'll need to create a new file and re-enter or import your transactions. Why? Because changing the financial year shifts period numbers and tax year assignments, which would corrupt your profit figures, retained earnings, and tax reporting.

If you're unsure, check with your accountant before setting up your MoneyWorks file. It saves a lot of trouble down the road.

The Four Things You Can Do with the MoneyWorks Period Management

Head to Command menu > Open/Close Period and you'll find four actions: New, Lock, Close, and Purge. Each serves a distinct purpose.

New opens a fresh accounting period. MoneyWorks will prompt the first authorised user on the first day of each month, but if that's missed, an admin can manually create a new period.

Lock temporarily prevents anyone from posting transactions for that period. It's a safeguard—not a final decision. You can unlock a period at any time if an adjustment is needed, then lock it again once you're done. Think of it as a soft close: the books are tidy, but the door isn't bolted shut yet.

Close is permanent. Once a period is closed, it cannot be reopened. This is the most consequential of the four actions, and it's where mistakes tend to happen.

Purge removes transaction detail from closed periods while keeping your general ledger balances intact. Useful if your data file has grown large, but irreversible—always back up before purging.

The Mistake That Catches People Out

Closing periods too early is the most common—and most frustrating—error in period management.

Consider what happened to Joanne. She finished her December 2025 accounts, printed her audit reports, and closed all periods through to December. Everything looked clean. Months later, her auditor returned with adjustments. But Joanne had no way to post them. December 2025 was gone.

The rule is simple: close a period only when you are certain no further adjustments will be needed. When in doubt, lock instead of close. Locking gives you protection without permanence.

How Many Periods Should You Keep Open?

MoneyWorks supports up to 99 open periods, so there's no rush to close anything. Many businesses keep two to five years of data open at any given time.

A reasonable approach: once a financial year has been audited and all adjustments posted, close those periods and lock the most recently completed year (of course, it also depends on how many years of data you intend to compare. For example, you keep five years if you intend to compare five years of financial data). You can still search for older transactions by date even after they've been closed—the data isn't lost, it's just no longer selectable from the period dropdown.

Before closing any periods, always print or save your financial reports as PDFs or spreadsheets. File them together with your auditor's reports and tax computations. These are your permanent records.

A Note on the Greyed-Out New Button

If the New button is greyed out, it simply means you've reached the 99-period limit. The fix is to close some of your older, fully audited periods to free up space.

And one more thing: once you've opened a new period, you can't undo it. So if you accidentally create a future period, it stays. It's a minor inconvenience rather than a disaster; it's worth knowing.

Period management isn't complicated once you understand the logic behind it—lock early and often, close only when you're sure, and always keep your reports. Set up your financial year correctly from day one, and the rest will follow naturally. If you have questions about setting up MoneyWorks for your business, feel free to get in touch with us at LedgerWorks.