In order to maintain clear financial records, Gradelink Financial uses “sessions,” which typically span a school's fiscal year. Within each of those sessions there are a number of billing periods, which typically span a month. In order to prevent errors in accounting, only one billing period may be open at a time, and a new billing period may not be opened until the previous billing period status has been set to closed. Billing period status moves in a progression from “pending” to “open” to “closed”. Maintaining the financial section in Gradelink involves closing the billing period at the end of the month and opening the billing period for the next month. In addition to helping prevent accounting errors, if students are on monthly pay plans, the monthly charges can be automatically applied to their ledgers. Closing the billing period at the end of each month and opening the next billing period will enable the monthly installment charges to be automatically posted to student ledgers.
Click on a billing period to change its Period Status from “Pending” to “Open”. At the end of the month period status should be changed from “Open” to “Closed”. The next billing period status should be changed from “Pending” to “Open”. It is not possible to open a billing period unless all billing periods before it within the session have been closed.
If an accounting error is discovered, and a debit or credit memo is not an appropriate way to correct the error, it is possible to re-open the billing period containing the error. To re-open a past billing period it is necessary to close the current billing period by changing the Period Status from open to closed. If the mistake is in the month immediately prior to the current month, the Period Status of the prior month should be changed from closed to open. If the error is in a month before the immediately prior month, it is necessary to first change the Period Status of each month to open. After the Period Status is set to open, it should be set to Pending. Continue opening, then pending billing periods until the period with the error is open. Make the necessary change and close the period. The following periods should be (in order) opened, and then closed until the current period is re-opened.