Periods in Aico are used to manage when users can perform certain actions on a document during the period. 

The typical use case is to prevent business users from posting journals from Aico after a specified date, despite the fact that the period is still open in the ERP. This allows the finance team to finalise the period.

On the Periods tab, you can add and open Aico accounting periods. You can add the periods to the system either Company by company or for all companies simultaneously. Where you add periods by company, this allows you to control whether the periods are open at this level.

To manage an Aico accounting period, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Periods tab

2. From the Company drop-down list, select the company, if required.

3. Check or uncheck the Open checkbox to open or close a period.

4. To add a new period, select a period from the Periods drop-down list and Click Add period.

5. Click Delete, if you want to delete the accounting period.

Once you have made changes the Save button appears for you to save your changes.

Periods are then checked using a validation task configured on the template.

For example, you may have this validation configured on a Business Journal template to prevent the business users from posting when the period is closed in Aico. 

However, the accountants may continue to post using their Accountant journal template because it does not contain the validation to check the Aico period setting.

The validation task contains a parameter of a date field. Typically, this is set as the accountingDate which Aico uses as the posting date for a journal. The task then compares the date with the First and Last date in the period shown above and if the period is closed the user cannot perform the associated action.