SparkReceipt Help

Closing accounting periods to lock past documents

Protect finalized months, weeks, or custom date ranges from accidental edits while keeping them visible and exportable.

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Written by SparkReceipt TeamUpdated Jul 16, 2026

Once you've finalized a month for bookkeeping, filed VAT, or handed numbers off to your accountant, you generally don't want anyone going back and changing receipts in that period. SparkReceipt's Closed periods feature lets you lock a date range so the documents inside it can't be edited or deleted by accident. Admins and accountants can still make corrections one document at a time when something genuinely needs fixing.

What "closing a period" does

A closed period is a date range — a calendar month, an ISO week, or any custom range — that you mark as finalized. While the period is closed:

  • Expenses and income with a document date inside the range are locked. They can't be edited (no changes to amounts, dates, categories, tags, line items, payment method, etc.), can't be deleted, and can't be re-scanned.
  • The receipt files attached to those documents can't be replaced, edited, or removed either.
  • Bank and credit card statements are not affected — you can keep editing those even when their statement period overlaps a closed range.
  • Everything stays fully viewable, shareable, and exportable. Closing a period doesn't hide anything; it just protects it.
  • Comments are still allowed. If you spot an issue in a closed document, you can leave a note for whoever has the rights to unlock it.

If a new receipt arrives later (for example, an emailed invoice that landed after the books were closed) and its date falls inside an already-closed period, SparkReceipt automatically flags it for review and adds a system comment explaining which closed period it lands in. That way nothing slips through silently.

Who can close and reopen periods

Closing periods, reopening them, and unlocking individual documents are restricted to two roles:

  • Admins — anyone with the Admin role on the account, plus the account Owner.
  • Accountants — the dedicated accountant role you can invite onto the account.

Members and Contributors don't see the Closed periods menu and can't override the lock on individual documents. They can still view locked documents and leave comments. For more on roles, see Understanding access levels and user roles.

Closing a period in the web app

  1. In the dashboard sidebar, click Closed periods (the lock icon). The menu item only appears for admins and accountants.
  2. Click Close period to open the dialog.
  3. Pick a Date range type:
    • Calendar month — choose a year and month. The full first-to-last day of the month is closed.
    • ISO week — choose a year and ISO week number (Monday to Sunday).
    • Custom range — pick any start and end date.
  4. Optionally give the period a Name (up to 100 characters), e.g. "FY2025 Q4" or "April 2026 – filed". The name is just a label to help you find it later.
  5. Confirm. The new period appears in the list with the date range, who closed it, and when.

The list view is also where you can see every period you've ever closed for the account.

Closing a period in the mobile app

  1. Open Settings from the main menu.
  2. Tap Closed periods (visible to admins and accountants only).
  3. Tap the + button in the top-right.
  4. In the bottom sheet, pick Calendar month, ISO week, or Custom range, fill in the dates, and optionally add a name.
  5. Tap Close period to confirm.

The list shows all existing periods. Swipe a row to reopen it.

Making corrections inside a closed period

Sometimes you genuinely need to fix something after the books are closed — a misclassified expense, a wrong date, a duplicate that needs deleting. SparkReceipt handles this without forcing you to reopen the whole period.

When an admin or accountant opens a document whose date falls inside a closed period, a yellow banner appears at the top of the document with the message "Books for this period are already closed." and an Unlock for editing button.

  • Click Unlock for editing to enable edits on just that one document. The banner switches to "Editing unlocked for this document."
  • Make your changes — edit fields, change category, delete, etc.
  • Click Lock again when you're done if you want to put the document back under protection without leaving the page.

The unlock applies only to that single document and only for that editing session. Other documents in the same period stay locked. There's also a server-side audit log entry whenever a document is force-edited inside a closed period.

A few corrections cannot be made even with the per-document unlock:

  • Replacing the attached receipt file, editing its raw OCR text, or deleting the file are blocked unconditionally inside a closed period.
  • Re-scanning a document (re-running OCR) is also blocked.

If you need to do any of those, reopen the period first, make the change, and close it again.

Members and Contributors don't see the Unlock for editing button. Instead they see "Books for this period are already closed. Contact your account administrator to make changes, or leave a comment."

Reopening a closed period

If you decide a whole period needs to be reopened — for example, a late expense report came in and it's easier to redo the close than to unlock individual documents — admins and accountants can remove the period entirely:

  • Web: open Closed periods, click the delete (trash) icon on the row, and confirm "Are you sure you want to reopen the period…".
  • Mobile: in Settings → Closed periods, swipe the row to delete and confirm.

Reopening is immediate. Documents in that range go back to their normal editable state. If a document was previously auto-flagged because it arrived after the period was closed, the flag is removed once the period is gone — although the system comment that explained the flag stays on the document as an audit trail.

You can close the same range again later if you want.

Rules and limits

A few things to know when planning your closed periods:

  • No overlapping periods. SparkReceipt won't let you create a period that overlaps with an existing one. If you try, you'll see "This period overlaps with an existing closed period. Please choose a different date range." — pick a different range, or reopen the existing period first.
  • Gaps are allowed. Periods don't need to be contiguous. You can close January and March without closing February.
  • Future dates are allowed. You can close a period that hasn't ended yet (handy if you want to lock down the current month right after filing) — any new documents whose date falls inside that range will then be auto-flagged.
  • Existing documents are not retroactively flagged. Closing a period after a document is already in the account does not mark that document as a violation; the flagging only applies to new documents added after the period is closed.
  • Periods are per account. Closing a period in one linked account doesn't affect any others.

Tips

  • Close the previous month as soon as you've reconciled it — it's the cheapest way to prevent accidental edits from team members or AI automations.
  • Use the Name field for context that future-you (or your accountant) will appreciate, e.g. "FY25 – filed 2026-04-15".
  • If you regularly add receipts late, consider using the per-document Unlock for editing flow rather than reopening the whole period — it leaves a tighter audit trail.