Understanding Fiscal Periods

A fiscal year is a 12-month accounting period used for financial reporting. Bamboo tracks fiscal years and manages the period closing process to ensure your financial data is accurate and compliant.

What is a Fiscal Year?

Your fiscal year determines:

• When your accounting year starts (e.g., January 1, April 1, July 1)
• When financial statements are prepared (at year-end)
• How income and expenses are grouped for reporting

Note

Common fiscal year examples:

• Calendar year: January 1 – December 31 (most businesses)
• April fiscal year: April 1 – March 31 (UK, India, Japan)
• July fiscal year: July 1 – June 30 (Australia, US government)

Fiscal Period Lifecycle

In Bamboo, each fiscal year goes through three stages:

Status	Description	Can Post Entries?	Can Reverse Close?
Open	Current working period	✅ Yes	—
Closed	Finalized, in grace period	⚠️ Yes (with warning)	✅ Yes
Locked	Permanently sealed	❌ No	❌ No

The lifecycle flows like this:

Open → (you close the period) → Closed → (grace period expires) → Locked

How Bamboo Handles Fiscal Years

Automatic Detection

Bamboo automatically determines your current fiscal year based on:

1. Your organization’s fiscal year start month (set during onboarding)
2. Today’s date

Examples (assuming today is March 15, 2026):

• January start: Your fiscal year is FY 2026 (January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026)
• July start: Your fiscal year is FY 2025-2026 (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026)

Year-End Close

When your fiscal year ends, you’ll close the period which:

1. Calculates net income (Revenue − Expenses)
2. Creates a closing journal entry that transfers net income to Retained Earnings
3. Resets income and expense accounts to zero for the new year
4. Starts a grace period for any corrections

Tip

The closing entry follows standard accounting practice: debit all Revenue accounts, credit all Expense accounts, and post the difference to Retained Earnings.

Grace Period

After closing, you have a configurable grace period (default: 14 days) to make corrections if needed.

During the grace period:

• You can reverse the close with a reason
• Reports show the period as “Closed”
• Entries to the closed FY can still be posted (with a warning)
• Entries to the new FY post normally without warning

After the grace period expires, the period is automatically locked and no entries can be posted.

Managing Fiscal Periods

Navigate to Reports → Period Close to:

• View your current fiscal period status
• See days remaining until year-end
• Preview the closing entry (revenue, expenses, net income)
• Close the period when ready
• Reverse a closed period (during grace period)
• View history of closed periods

Dashboard Notifications

Bamboo shows contextual banners based on your organization’s period close settings:

Notification	When It Appears	Can Dismiss?
FY ending soon	Within the configured reminder days before year-end (default: 14, 7, 3, 1 days)	✅ Yes*
FY Ended - Close Required	Fiscal year has ended but not yet closed	❌ No
Immediate Lock Warning	Grace period is 0 days (closing will lock immediately)	❌ No

Note

*Dismissible reminders will reappear at each milestone (e.g., dismiss at 10 days, it reappears at 7 days). The final day reminder cannot be dismissed.

Best Practices

1. Prepare early

   Start your year-end checklist 2-4 weeks before the fiscal year ends.

2. Reconcile all accounts

   Ensure bank accounts, receivables, and payables are accurate.

3. Review the closing preview

   Check that revenue and expenses look correct before closing.

4. Close promptly

   Close within the first week of the new fiscal year.

5. Document any reversals

   If you need to reverse a close, provide a clear reason for the audit trail.

Next Steps

• Closing a Period – Step-by-step closing guide
• Reversing a Closed Period – How to reopen if corrections are needed