The apply date, current period, and grace period all work together to allow Compeat to determine if a transaction can be entered, and when it should appear on the financial statements.
Note: DSRs are not restricted by the current period. They can be entered with any date. However, Compeat only allows you to enter a DSR for a given date one time; that is, you cannot enter a DSR for June 1, 2006 more than once for a single restaurant.
Information appears on financial statements according to the Apply Date. Every financial transaction has an apply date.
In order for a transaction to be entered, Compeat first checks that the transaction is in an open year; then, Compeat checks that the apply date is in the current period plus any grace period (define grace periods on the Invoices & Checks and Journals tabs of the Setup menu > Other Definitions screen). A warning is given if these checks fail.
Note: You can disable the checking of transaction apply dates in security by selecting the option "Allow the entry of apply dates outside of the current period" in the Screen Access options under Settings in the Setup menu > Security > Groups screen. You will still receive a warning message, but if this option is selected, you can enter any apply date. This allows your transactions to be posted to an incorrect date, or even year. Typically you would leave this option turned off for most security groups; the discussion on transaction dates in this topic assumes that you do.
The current period indicates the active accounting period, and is a number that falls within one of the following ranges, depending on the Periods definition on the Setup menu:
1 – 12, if you use 12 calendar month periods.
1 – 13, if you use 52 periods (5-4-4), 52 periods (4-5-4), 52 periods (4-4-5), or thirteen 4-week periods.
A period remains open until explicitly closed using the Close Period utility; this utility increments the current period by one (but has no financial affect).
Compeat also allows you to define a grace period for General Journal transactions, AP Invoice transactions, and Manual Checks transactions. This is the number of days past the end of the period that you can still enter transactions for that period.
For example if the current date is June 2 and your current period is May or June, if you have a grace period of 2 days, you can still enter transactions with May apply dates. Your grace period expires on June 3rd, after which you cannot enter any more May transactions.
Before allowing you to enter a transaction, Compeat determines what the current date is by checking your computer’s system date. It then determines which period the current date falls in. If the current date is in the current period, then you can enter any transactions with apply dates within the current period. For example, if the current date is June 3 and your current period is June, you can enter any transaction with an apply date of June. If however, your current period is still May, you cannot enter any transaction with a June apply date until you close the May period.
You cannot enter a transaction with an apply date later than the current period regardless of the current date unless under Setup > Other Definitions you select "Allow postings to future periods" on the Other tab; but what about a transaction earlier than the current date? This depends on whether the apply-date falls within the grace period. For example, if the current date is June 1, and your current period is May, you cannot enter any June apply-date transactions, but you can still enter May transactions if you have defined a grace period of one or more days.
Note: In order to enter a transaction, its apply date must be within the current period, plus any grace period.
Where Date Validation Occurs
This validation occurs on these screens: AP
Invoices, Manual Checks,
Manual Payments, Print
Checks/Post Batch, Receive
Payments, Adjust
Customer Accounts, Deposit
Customer Payments, Produce
Prep Items, Inter-Store
Transfers, Waste/Donations,
Unship Inter-Store
Transfer, Portioning, Order Fulfillments,
and Unship Orders.
The following examples further explain the concept of the current period, apply dates, and grace periods; for all examples assume you are using 12 calendar month periods, and the defined grace period is 2 days:
Example 1.
Today is June 1, 2010. You wish to enter a transaction with an apply date
of May 29, 2010. You can enter
this transaction because the current period (May) has not been closed,
and you are within the two-day grace period. You will be able to enter
new transactions with May apply dates until June 3rd.
Example 2.
Today is June 3, 2010. You wish to enter a transaction with an apply date
of May 29, 2010. You cannot enter
this transaction because the current period’s (May) two-day grace period
has expired. You cannot enter any more new transactions with May apply
dates.
Example 3.
Today is June 1, 2010. You wish to enter a transaction with an apply date
of June 1, 2010. You cannot enter
this transaction because the current period (May) has not been closed;
you will not be able to enter new transactions with June apply dates until
the period has been closed. You can still enter May transactions.
Example 4.
Today is June 3, 2010. You wish to enter a transaction with an apply date
of June 1, 2010. You still cannot
enter this transaction because the current period (May) has not been closed.
You can no longer enter May transactions either because the two-day grace
period has expired.
Example 5.
Today is June 3, 2010. You have closed the period for May. Your current
period is now June. You wish to enter a transaction with an apply date
of June 1, 2010. You can enter
this transaction because the current period is in June; you can not enter any transactions with
May apply dates.