Concept: Close

Workday enables you to have multiple ledger periods open at the same time. While you're finalizing a ledger period, you can get the next ledger period under way. You can select new statuses and close activities for one or more ledger periods, and use different statuses and close activities for other ledger periods.

If you have more than 1 ledger type, the corresponding ledger periods and statuses are always in sync.

Example: If your company uses

Actuals

and

Commitments

ledger types, you update the ledger periods and statuses for each ledger type concurrently.

To close a ledger period, you gradually lock it down to limit new journal activity as you work towards the close.

Example: On February 2, you change the January ledger period status from

Open

to

Close in Progress

. This status prevents operational journal activity for specific activities, such as

Procurement

. You keep the Payroll close activity as

Open

to process payroll on the next run date of February 15.

Before closing the previous ledger year, Workday enables you to roll journal balances forward into the beginning balance of the current ledger year. At any point in the close timeline, you can run the

Roll Forward Year-End Balance

process to create or replace journal beginning balances. These beginning journal balances, combined with current-year journal activity, give you the latest numbers when you report on the current ledger year.

Example: You run the roll forward process in mid-January after you've changed the status for previous year ledgers to

Adjustments Only

. Running the roll forward process in mid-January enables you to create a more realistic January balance sheet.

You can also have Workday roll forward translated beginning balances after rolling year-end balances forward.

Just as you can have multiple ledger periods open simultaneously, in Workday you can have the preceding ledger year open as you work in the next ledger year. Leave at least 1 ledger period open (typically the last) for a place to post adjustments until you're ready to close the ledger year.

Example: You open the January ledger period in late December. You gradually limit your December journal activity by changing the ledger period status. On January 10, you limit the ledger period to

Adjustments Only

. After you make adjustments and close all periods, in early March you close the preceding ledger year.

To close a ledger year, you define year-end closing rules and run the ledger year close process. Close all ledger periods for the year before you can close the ledger year. The process:

(Optional) Rolls forward remaining balances from the preceding ledger year into the beginning balance of the current ledger year, for the last time.
Updates the ledger year status to
Closed
.

To manage your close procedures, you can create close checklists in Workday to incorporate all your close steps into your business process workflow. At the scheduled time, Workday sends a notification to complete the task to the assigned worker. By using a close checklist, you can also analyze close metrics and send workers additional notifications about a close step anytime.