Before you start
Line these up before you set a cutoff. The order of the work matters more than any individual step.- The period lock permission on your role, and the period locking subscription. Without the permission the Period Locking page is hidden rather than empty.
- A reconciled A/P sub-ledger as of the cutoff date. Locking A/P does not reverse anything already posted; it only stops what comes next.
- An accrued liability account in the chart of accounts, separate from the A/P control account. Accruing to the wrong one is what blocks the entry, as covered in Know what the cutoff blocks.
- The period you are closing has ended. The Period Locking page disables every month after last month, so the most recent period you can lock is the previous calendar month.
Choose the cutoff date
Pick the boundary before you touch the page, because DualEntry stores the first day that is still open rather than the last day that is closed. Locking A/P for 09/2026 stores a boundary of 10/01/2026, which closes every payable record dated 09/30/2026 or earlier and leaves October open. A record dated exactly on the boundary posts normally. The page works in whole months: you pick a year and a month, and the boundary lands on the first of the following month. There is no field for a mid-month date, so a true negative-workday cutoff, one that seals A/P on 09/28/2026 while 09/29/2026 through 09/30/2026 stay open, is not something the page can express today. You get the accrual benefit by posting the accrual early and locking A/P once the month rolls, not by locking A/P mid-month. Nothing in the public API reads or changes lock state either, so plan on setting the cutoff from the page rather than as the last step of a scripted close.Know what the cutoff blocks
Check your accrual against this before you lock, because the A/P cutoff blocks a record either for what the record is or for the accounts its lines touch, and the two rules behave differently. Payable record types are blocked by type, whatever accounts they hit. Account-aware types are judged on their lines instead:
For the full section mapping across A/R and Non GL records, see How to Lock and Unlock Accounting Periods.
The account-aware rule is the whole mechanism behind an accelerated accrual. A standard accrual debits an expense account and credits an accrued liability account. Neither is the A/P control account, so DualEntry checks the entry against Other GL only, and it posts even though A/P is sealed. The reversal you schedule into the next period posts for the same reason.
The invoice that arrives afterward is a bill, so it is judged on A/P and rejected for any date at or before the cutoff. Date it in the open period instead, where it meets the accrual reversal and nets out. That is the control: the estimate stays in the period it belongs to, and the actual cannot double-book behind it.
Run currency revaluation first
Run the revaluation for the period before you lock A/P, because a revaluation that restates open foreign-currency bills posts to the A/P control account. That makes it account-aware in the same way a journal entry is: it is judged on A/P, and a posting date at or before the cutoff is rejected. To keep the payables ledger sealed once it is locked, run the revaluation for the period, confirm the unrealized gain or loss posted, then lock A/P. The revaluation reverses itself the following day, and that reversal is dated in the next period, which is open. To revalue after the cutoff is already set, narrow the run to the accounts you need. Revaluation runs against the accounts you select, so a run covering bank and receivable accounts but no payable account is judged on Other GL alone and posts with A/P locked. If the run has to include payable accounts for the closed period, unlock A/P, run it, and lock again. The unlock and the relock are both written to the audit trail with the user, timestamp, and reason. See Currency Revaluation for how a run is built.Set the A/P cutoff
Set the cutoff once the payables side is reconciled and the revaluation has posted.- Navigate to Close Management → Close Workflows → Period Locking.
- Select the year from the date dropdown, then choose the month you are closing. Months after last month are disabled.
- Filter to the company, or work across All companies.
- Choose Lock A/P on the company’s row, and confirm.
Post the accrual after the cutoff
Post the accrual exactly as you would any other month-end accrual once A/P is locked. Nothing about the entry changes because a cutoff is in place. Date the accrual the last day of the period, debit the expense account, credit the accrued liability account, and set Reversal Date to the first day of the next period so the pair clears itself. Attach the quote, the vendor statement, or the calculation behind the estimate: the amount is an estimate, and the support is what an auditor asks for. For recurring accruals and for spreading one accrual across several months, see How to Post and Reverse Month-End Accruals. Both dates are checked, so the reversal date has to fall in an open period too. With A/P locked for September and Other GL open, a 09/30/2026 accrual reversing on 10/01/2026 posts on both ends.Handle late adjustments while A/P is locked
Keep posting the rest of your close work normally: an A/P cutoff does not close the books, and most late adjustments are unaffected by it. A prepaid reclass moving a balance out of a prepaid account into expense touches neither the A/P nor the A/R control account, so it is checked against Other GL and posts normally. The same holds for depreciation, amortization, allocation journals, bank transfers, and ordinary adjusting entries. Where the amount was paid up front rather than accrued, use an amortization schedule instead of a run of manual entries. To post a new payable record into the closed window, a bill, a vendor payment, a vendor credit, a vendor refund, or a vendor prepayment, unlock A/P, post it, and lock again. Dating it into the next period instead distorts both periods.Verify
The cutoff is working when all of these hold:- The Period Locking page shows the A/P section locked for the company, with the tooltip naming the locked-until date, and Other GL still unlocked.
- The accrual appears on the Posted tab of the Journal Entries list, and its Related Records tab shows the reversal in the next period.
- A test bill dated inside the closed window fails to save with a locked-period error naming the A/P section and the company.
- The same bill dated in the open period saves normally.
- The GL Impact tab on the accrual shows the expense and accrued liability accounts, and no line on the A/P control account.