Financial periods
A financial period represents a window in time during which an organization's financial events should be consolidated. Usually, this is a day, or working hours of a store. A financial period is opened at the start, and closed at the end. During this window, any financial event that takes place, will become associated with that financial period.
When the period is over and closed, all events will be processed using Cookbook.
Cash journal
A cash journal is sort of like a financial period as well, but then for one specific device. Like financial periods, cash journals are also opened and closed, usually at the start and end of every day. There's nothing that stops you from opening and closing multiple cash journals in a single day, if that's how you prefer running things. This could be useful in situations where for example, your shop operates in shifts.
A cash journal can only be opened for cash devices, which is currently limited to devices with a CashDrawer and Safe. A CashDrawer is currently always attached to a station, while a Safe is not. Therefore, the services that deal with financial period management communicates with DeviceID rather than a StationID.
Cash journals can only be opened and closed within financial periods.
Financial period flow
For a more in-depth explanation of a financial period flow, check the in-store financial periods walk-through.
Every financial period should more or less follow the same flow from start to finish (opening to results).
Opening → Operations → Closing → Results
Opening
Traditionally, we open financial periods manually. In EVA however, we can only do this for organization units that have POS set up. The opening should be done at start of day (start of financial period).
Any operations that involve creation of any sort of financial event will be blocked if there is no open financial period.
Opening without POS
Organizations that do not have a POS should have their financial periods opened and closed using alternative methods. We can do this using one of two methods:
- Services
- Recurring tasks: To set up the correct task, head over to Admin 1.0 Management → Tasks and search for AutoOpenCloseFinancialPeriod.
More on recurring tasks
The task automatically closes your financial period and opens a new one right away at a specified time. You can also make use of the timezone parameter to accommodate organization units with various locations. This ensures that the task is run at proper intervals that cater for the respective organization unit(s) timezone rather than a fixed UTC time, or in scenarios where for example, a daylight saving time kicks in.
Example: Assume you've set Cron to "5 4 * * *", this would mean that your task would run every day at 04:05:00 UTC. However, if you've also specified a timezone, then the respective timezone of the impacted organization unit would be considered.
The timezone parameter would properly work only if a timezone was initially specified on your organization unit under the basic information tab. Further, if Cron is set to run hourly, the financial periods will open/close every 3 hours.
Additionally, you need to activate this task per organization unit. To do so, head over to the Settings module and set AutoOpenCloseFinancialPeriod to true on the desired organization unit(s). In addition, "Use for accounting" needs to also be set to true on that same list of desired organization units in order for this to work.
Financial periods only need to be put in place for organization units that actually keep stock and/or perform sales; stores, warehouses, web shops etc.
Operations
When your financial period is open, you can perform any stock related or sales operation in your organization unit. Those operations will generate respective financial events and will be grouped under the ID of the financial period.
When the period is open, we can also open and close cash journals.
Closing
Much like opening, financial periods are manually closed on POS. For organizations without a POS, the AutoOpenCloseFinancialPeriod task could also do the job. Financial periods can also be manually closed from the Financial periods chapter in Admin Suite.
For a financial period to be closed (manual or auto) all respective cash journals must first be closed.
Results
When a financial period is closed, EVA will take the entire collection of financial events pertaining to that period, and run them through Cookbook.
Make sure to have Cookbook set up correctly, otherwise your events will have no follow-up.
Financial periods in Admin Suite
The Financial periods chapter under Admin Suite's Financials module is where you can obtain an all-encompassing overview of your financial periods. This includes the possibility to also perform some actions, such as closing a financial period.
Opening a financial period is not possible via the Financial Periods chapter. This can only be done via the respective frontend App.
The initial overview provides a list of closed financial periods, as well as the currently open one (if applicable) pertaining to a specified organization unit.
Use the Organization Unit selector on the left sidebar to select the desired Organization Unit. You'll then be presented with the related financial periods of that organization unit. Further, make use of the right sidebar filters to narrow down your overviews list of financial periods.
Clicking a financial period will show you some cards. The cards displayed will be based on the financial events that took place within that period. Each card will show unique information and have its own set of actions.
Below is a list of all possible cards:
- General info
- Revenue
- Stations
- Open tasks
- Negative stock counts
- Unprocessed orders
The General information, Revenue, and Stations cards, are fixed cards. Those three cards will display regardless of the type and nature of financial events that took place within the period.
General info
This is basic info hence, the title. Financial Period ID, date and time (start & end) is the data we display here. Goes without saying that if your financial period is still open, an end date/time would not be displayed.
Revenue
What you see is what you get, literally! Categorized by payment method, your revenue for the period is presented here.
Stations
Stations is where it becomes interactive. The displayed list will be based on your Stations configuration. In our screenshot sample above, our store had 2 stations, a "Cash Drawer" and a "Pin Terminal".
Cash Drawer
If your financial period is closed, all you can do here is view the periods activity. However, if the period is open some modification is possible. Those are covered in the respective sections below.
By clicking the downward pointing "expand icon" next to your cash drawer, you will see Count, Income and expenses, Deposits, and Mutations. If impacted during your financial period, details for each would be displayed.
Counts
By clicking the "i" icon next to your cash drawer, you will be presented with all ledger impacting transactions that took place within that financial period (or till that moment, if the financial period is still open).
If the financial period is still Open, you'll have the option to close "Cash Drawer(s)". This can be done by clicking the Lock icon next to the cash drawer you wish to close.
In line with the usual flow of closing a financial period on POS, this action will prompt a cash count, and any differences will require a cash correction reason.
Once your Cash drawers are counted and closed, you can now close the financial period using the "Close Period" button.
If the setting called FinancialPeriod:RequirePCIQuestion is set to true, then you would first need to answer the PCI compliancy question (yes or no) in order for the "Close Period" button to become clickable.
Income and expenses
The periods income and expenses can be viewed here.
With an open financial period, you can perform such action yourself by clicking the cards "+" icon, or via the usual flow on POS.
Deposits
The periods bank deposits can be viewed here.
With an open financial period, you can perform such action yourself by clicking the cards "+" icon, or via the usual flow on POS.
Based on a setting called CashJournal:Deposit:AllowOnlyFromSafe, and true or false as possible values. You can determine whether the "+" icon for an open financial period is visible here or not.
Further, some notes to keep in mind when it comes to Deposits:
- The card would only be displayed if a station of type Safes exists.
- If a deposit has a status Pending the Actions column would present a check icon (see above screenshot) which can then be clicked to complete the deposit. One done the status will be chnged to Completed.
Mutations
Any movement of cash between stations is displayed here. In our sample screenshot, cash was moved from our cash drawer to the safe.
In large stores where more than one cash drawer exists, this can be movement of cash between drawers. Let's say, for change or smaller denomination requirements.
With an open financial period, you can perform such action yourself by clicking the cards "+" icon. This action would then present a similar overlay to the cash drawer cash count where value and denomination(s) are to be specified.
Open tasks
This card will only show if the financial period is still open and includes impediments of type Active_User_Task.
Any open task(s) pertaining to the financial period being viewed, is displayed under this card. Clicking the action button will navigate you to the Tasks chapter.
Negative stock corrections
This card will only show if the financial period is still open and includes impediments of type Negative_Stock.
Tapping the POS icon will navigate you to the URL mentioned in a setting called EvaPos:Url, opening the underlying order on POS.
Make sure your settings allow for a negative stock count, otherwise this card will never show as it would not apply. The setting ResolveNegativeStockDuringPeriodClosing set to true would mean that the possibility for a negative stock count is there, and subsequently, this card.
Unprocessed orders
This card will only show if the financial period is still open and includes impediments of an unprocessed order.
Any unprocessed orders pertaining to the financial period being viewed will be displayed under this card.
Clicking the action button will navigate you to the Order detail page for ease, traceability, and necessary action to regularize (if any).
Having an unprocessed order within a financial period is non-blocking in terms of closing that period.