How to lock dates in QuickBooks

Sign in as the primary admin or a company admin. Closing the books, moving the closing date and changing its password are admin tasks, so other users won't be able to make these changes.

Make sure the period you're about to lock is finished. Intuit's checklist before closing is to go through every account for completeness and accuracy, enter any invoices, expenses and payments still outstanding, reconcile your accounts up to the date you'll lock, and check that your inventory quantities are right. Intuit's order is to finish those checks and set the lock date after them, since the lock exists to stop past transactions being changed.

Decide how strict the lock should be. QuickBooks gives two security options. The first lets users carry on with a change once they've seen a warning. The second makes them enter a password as well, which Intuit describes as the more secure choice, so think about who should hold that password.

1. Go to Settings and select Account and settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Select Edit in the Accounting section.
4. Turn on Close the books.
5. Enter the Closing date you want to lock up to.
6. From the dropdown, choose Allow changes after viewing a warning, or Allow changes after viewing a warning and entering password. For the password option, enter the password and confirm it.
7. Select Save.

Every transaction dated on or before the closing date is now protected. When someone tries to edit or delete one, QuickBooks steps in with the warning or the password prompt you set. With the warning option they can still go ahead after seeing it; with the password option they need the password before the change goes through.

So closing the books doesn't make old transactions impossible to change: it makes changing them a deliberate act. To see what was altered after you closed, go to Reports, select Standard reports, type Exceptions to Closing Date in the search field and open the report.

The lock covers only transactions dated on or before the closing date, and it can be moved: an admin can change the closing date or its password later from the same settings.