While the goal of accounting is always accuracy, sometimes circumstances require adjustments to past financial records. In Aplos, performing a bank reconciliation is a critical step that effectively closes the period for that bank account, locking cleared transactions to prevent accidental edits.

However, if you discover an error, need to correct a transaction, or simply revisit a closed period, Aplos provides administrative tools to safely reopen and adjust past reconciliations. This article will guide you through the process of unlocking a prior period and explain the impact these changes will have on your subsequent reconciliations.

Closing a Period

Performing a bank reconciliation will close the period for the cleared transactions tied to that bank account. This prevents the transactions in that period from being edited. Another way to close a period for transactions without performing a bank reconciliation is to use Period Close. 

Reopen a Prior Period

Sometimes you may find it necessary to revisit or edit a bank reconciliation that has been previously closed. If you are an administrator, you will be able to reopen a bank reconciliation.

If you need to make changes to your reconciliation, you can go to the “Reconciled” tab under the Bank Reconciliation screen, click the “Actions” button and select “Reopen Reconciliation.”

Note: Re-opening a bank reconciliation will delete any bank reconciliations that are currently in progress for this account, since the change may impact the balances for these periods.

Selecting “Reopen Reconciliation" will reopen that period so you can make changes.

Deleting a Bank Reconciliation

If you need to delete a bank reconciliation that is not the most recent period, you will need to delete all of the bank reconciliations that were completed since that date because deleting an earlier period may impact the overall account balance so these periods may no longer be accurate.