Setting the G/L Audit Close Date

Important: After you set the G/L audit close date you cannot change it to a prior data without the assistance of an Eclipse customer support representative.

To prevent changes to the general ledger after the closing date for a reporting period, set the audit close date so no additional changes can be made to entries occurring during the closed period. After the audit close date in the Change G/L Closing Date screen is set, you cannot change the date back and a freeze process is initiated. The freeze process creates a snapshot record of your A/R and general ledger transaction files at the time of the closing. It is important to maintain accurate G/L audit close dates so overnight system maintenance routines, which run from the current date back to the audit close date, run quickly and efficiently.

Note: If you stop the freeze process by killing the phantom process, in rare instances there can be a Universe lock left on the snapshot file. This lock clears on its own. However, it may take several hours before you can restart the freeze process. However, the process has indeed been stopped.

To set the audit close date:

From the G/L > G/L Maintenance menu, select Change G/L Closing Date to display the Change G/L Closing Date screen.
In the Audit Close Date field, update the date to the calendar date for audit close. If this is the first time a user in your company has accessed the Change G/L Closing Date screen, the field to the right of the Audit Close Date field displays Open, indicating that the period has not been frozen. If you have previously entered an audit close date, the field to the right displays as frozen with the date the audit period was frozen.

Note: Restrict changing the Audit Close Date field to the individual who has the final responsibility for the company's financial integrity and requires SUPERUSER authorization or the GL.CLOSE.DATE.EDIT authorization key.

The system runs two overnight Phantom processes to freeze the audit date. If the processes fail or are interrupted, the Freeze Date hot key in the Change G/L Closing Date screen is highlighted the next time you enter the screen. Reset the Audit Close Date and use the Freeze Date hot key to freeze the audit close date.

Note: If you open the Change G/L Closing Date screen, and the audit closed date is not indicated as frozen, and the Freeze Date hot key is highlighted, the Phantom processes are either running or have not run before.