The Lock date closes the books up to a day: nothing dated on or before it can be added, changed or deleted, so figures you have reported, filed or handed to your accountant stay as they were. Set it in Settings, under Lock date, or with Lock this period from a reconciled month or an ended VAT period. The owner and their accountant move it.
Locking a day
Choose the day. Before anything changes, the section counts what the day closes ("Locks 73 orders, 7 expenses, 5 adjustments and 3 payouts dated on or before 30 Sept 2026") and the dialog says it again. The section then says who locked it and when.
What a locked period holds
- Orders, expenses, adjustments, payouts, paid payments, drawings and stock movements dated in it stay as they are.
- A refund dated after the Lock date can still be recorded on an order sold before it: it counts in its own period.
- Paying a funder back for old goods is a payment made today, so it is never refused.
- A change elsewhere that would move a locked period's figures (a VAT rate, a delivery's funding) is refused, naming what it would move.
Moving it or unlocking
Move the lock to a later day to close more, or to an earlier one to reopen part of a period; Unlock opens everything again. Each says what it reopens, and that figures already filed may then change. When the Lock date moves earlier, the store's accountants are told.
Every store's Lock date
At All stores, Lock dates lists each store of the account with its Lock date, so you can see at a glance which are closed up to a year end or a VAT quarter. A row opens that store's own Lock date.
Related: Reconciling a month, Working with your accountant.
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