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Last reviewed: 2026-07-30

Close

Purpose

Close is a review and control process for financial periods.

Canonical rules

  • Close is a review and control process.
  • Close decisions are made through explicit company-scoped Close Runs, not direct period-status edits.
  • Soft close supports month and quarter reporting.
  • Hard close protects year-end results.
  • Close must surface exceptions before approval.
  • Close checks must classify issues as blockers, warnings, or informational items.
  • A failed non-waivable blocker always prevents finalization.
  • A failed waivable blocker prevents finalization until an authorized, reasoned, audited waiver changes its effective disposition without erasing the failed check.
  • Waivers must be explicit, attributable, and auditable.
  • Soft close requires a current ready Close Run.
  • Hard close requires a current ready Close Run, a distinct approval tied to the exact reviewed run, and protected finalization.
  • Any relevant posting, correction, reconciliation, evidence, report-pack, period, waiver, or policy change makes an unfinalized evaluation stale.
  • Close evidence must be stored or referenced durably when policy requires reports, reconciliations, snapshots, or signoff.
  • Close report packs reference persisted Reporting runs and accepted evidence; Close does not own report execution or evidence artifact storage.
  • Close may coordinate accounting work, but ledger effects must still post through the central posting path.
  • Reopen requires a durable Close reopen decision, authority, reason, step-up confirmation, and audit trail.
  • Close proceeds from constituent periods toward containing periods; reopen proceeds from containing periods toward constituents without automatic cascades.
  • A hard-closed period accepts no new reversal or adjustment entry until it is separately reopened. A later eligible-period correction may target its posted history without changing the hard-closed period.
  • Finalized close runs, checks, waivers, approvals, packs, reopen records, and period state changes remain immutable historical control evidence.
  • Applicable sales-tax accounting, filing eligibility, return evidence, remittance evidence, and bank-match readiness are evaluated through the registered checks in the Sales Tax Accounting and Remittance Contract. Close never calculates tax, files, initiates payment, or posts a tax entry.

User implications

  • Soft close indicates a period is ready for reporting.
  • Hard close stops ordinary posting and requires authorized correction procedures.

Developer implications

  • Implement soft and hard close states separately.
  • Use the Close Run Contract for evaluation, waiver, approval, finalization, replay, and reopen behavior.
  • Preserve exception information before approval.
  • Capture reopen authority and reason.
  • Preserve close-run identity, target period, checks, waivers, approvals, and evidence references.
  • Keep inventory valuation, report rendering, and document storage rules in their owning areas; close coordinates their results.
  • Show later corrections against closed-period entries without treating correction workflow state as ledger truth.
  • ../contracts/kernel.contract.md
  • ../contracts/close-run.contract.md
  • ../contracts/financial-period.contract.md
  • ../contracts/accounting-correction.contract.md
  • ../contracts/sales-tax-accounting-and-remittance.contract.md
  • ../../user/period-close.md