Transaction Locking

At the end of an accounting period, you may want to protect your financial records from accidental or unauthorised changes. To prevent this, Zoho ERP helps you lock the transactions by restricting access to them. This feature is useful especially when you complete month-end or year-end accounting.

When you enable transaction locking, you set a lock date. Once set, Zoho ERP then freezes all transactions created on or before this date. Users in your organisation cannot create new transactions, edit the existing ones, or delete them that fall within the locked period. This ensures that the finalised accounts remain accurate and unchanged, while you continue working on the new transactions.

Lock Transactions

In Zoho ERP, you can lock transactions in the following modules:

• Sales
• Purchases
• Banking
• Accounting

Also, you can choose to lock transactions by individual modules or lock all transactions at once.

Lock Transactions In Individual Modules

In some businesses, different teams handle different areas like sales, purchases, or expenses. Each team may complete its work at different time, so they may not want to lock all transactions on the same date.

To address this, Zoho ERP lets you lock transactions only for the completed modules, instead of locking everything at once. To do this:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Lock next to the required module in which you want to lock transactions.
• In the pop-up that appears, fill in the following details:
  • Lock Date: Choose the date on which you want to lock the transactions. Once set, the transactions created on or before this date will be locked.
  • Reason: Provide a short description on why you’re locking the transactions. For example, if you’re preparing for an year-end audit, you can enter it here.
• Click Lock.

The transactions in the respective module will be locked.

Lock All Transactions

To lock all the transactions at once:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Switch to Lock All Transactions.
• In the next page, click Lock next to All Transactions.
• In the pop-up that appears, fill in the required details.
• Click Lock.

All the transactions in the supported modules will be locked at once.

Edit Transaction Locking Details

If you want to change the date or reason for your locked transactions, you can edit the transaction locking. Here’s how:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Edit next to the module you want to update the locking details.
• In the pop-up that appears, make the required changes.
• Click Lock.

The transaction locking details will be updated.

Unlock Transactions

Once you start a new accounting period, you can unlock the locked transactions, and update them if required. To do so:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Unlock next to the required module, and select Unlock Completely from the dropdown.
• In the pop-up that appears, enter the Reason to unlock your transactions.
• Click Unlock.

The transactions will be unlocked in the respective module. Similarly, you can unlock transactions if you’ve locked them all at once.

Unlock Transactions Partially

If you want to update locked transactions for reasons such as compliance or accurate reporting, you can partially unlock a module. This way, you can update only the required transactions, without unlocking all of them.

To do this:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Unlock next to the required module, and select Unlock Partially from the dropdown.
• In the pop-up that appears, fill in the following fields:
  • Partial Unlock Period: Set the start and end dates in which you want to unlock transactions of the respective module.
  • Reason: Enter why you’re partially unlocking the module.
• Click Unlock.

The module will be partially unlocked.

Disable Partial Unlock

Once you’ve made the required changes, you can disable the partial unlock. Here’s how:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Unlock next to the required module, and select Disable Partial Unlock from the dropdown.
• In the confirmation pop-up, click Disable Partial Unlock again.

The transactions will be locked again.

Restrictions in Transaction Locking

In Zoho ERP, certain restrictions are applied when you lock transactions in inventory valuations and reports. These restrictions ensure that the stocks levels in your organisation remain accurate, especially when you track stocks levels using locations or use inventory valuation methods like First In First Out (FIFO) and Weighted Average Costing (WAC).

Case 1: Negative Quantity

Zoho ERP lets you lock transactions with negative quantity. This happens when the items are sold before being purchased.

In such cases, Zoho ERP records this temporarily using the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) with an estimated price. Once you record a bill for the actual cost, the invoice is updated accordingly.

If you lock the module before recording the bill, Zoho ERP cannot record the entries in COGS. This can lead to invalid inventory data.

Case 2: Future Dated Purchase Transactions

If you record an invoice within the lock period, and associate it with a bill that is after the lock period, Zoho ERP restricts you to lock the invoices, as the COGS included in the invoice reflects the item’s actual amount in the bill. This can lead to invalid data being recorded.

Case 3: Partial Unlocking

Zoho ERP doesn’t allow you to partially unlock transactions that involves inventory-tracked items. It is because creating or updating an unlocked transaction affects the other locked transactions in the specified partial unlock date range.

Case 4: Locking Only Sales Transactions

If you have locked sales transactions in Zoho ERP, you cannot unlock the corresponding purchase transactions as well. This is because when you update a purchase transaction, the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) may be affected in the corresponding sales transaction.

Configure Restrictions in Transaction Locking

You can configure preferences in transaction locking when a negative stock exists in your Zoho ERP organisation. To do this:

• Go to Accounting on the left sidebar and select Transaction Locking.
• In the next page, click Configure next to Restrict transaction locking with negative stock in the top right corner.
• In the dropdown that appears, choose one of the following preferences:
  • Allow transaction locking with negative stock to lock transactions even if the negative stock exists.
  • Restrict transaction locking with negative stock to prevent locking transactions when negative stock exists.
• Click Apply.

Your transaction locking preferences will be updated.