Lock in a finished year with Close the Books

Once your treasurer’s annual report is written and your audit committee has signed off, there’s one more step: locking that year down so nobody can go back and quietly edit it. That’s what Close the Books does.

Head to Settings > Close the Books, pick the fiscal year you just finished, and BeeKeeper walks you through a checklist first — flagging things like bank accounts that still need reconciling, transactions waiting in your review queue, expense reports pending approval, or anything still sitting in Uncategorized Expense. You’ll see exactly what the closing entry looks like before you commit to anything.

When you close the year, BeeKeeper posts a real closing entry that zeroes that year’s income and expenses into your carry-over equity account (already on your chart of accounts) — the same thing your treasurer would do by hand, just faster and without the risk of a typo. From that point on, nothing dated in that year can be edited, voided, or deleted, so the numbers your membership approved stay exactly as approved. Your reports — Profit & Loss, Annual Financial, Form 990, Budget vs Actual — still show the real numbers for that year. Closing doesn’t change what happened, it just protects it.

Made a mistake, or need to make a late change? Any admin can reopen a closed year — just give a reason. BeeKeeper keeps a record of who closed it, who reopened it, when, and why.