Month End Close Timing

We are trying to pick a time to do month end closing on Saturday for IC, PO, CB, and AP. With it being the holiday we are thinking we'd like to close in the morning on Saturday, so as not to interfere with people's plans. However, we have distribution techs working on Saturday to do par counting and replenishment. If we close IC Saturday morning will that cause a problem for the techs that use MSCM to enter counts and do picking? Lawson will be in period 11, but the system date and time will still be period 10...

Thoughts? Does anyone know if this will even be an issue? Thanks.

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Legacy Contributor

Stace, Don't know if this will help or not, but we always do our month end close the next business day. So for us, we will close on Monday, Nov. 2nd. And since the period end date is set for 10/31/15, it will not affect any IC or PO processing for November. We have been doing this for years. We have not had any issues. We do make sure that all transactions entered for October have been completed, so that the posting will hit the GL appropriately.
Vicky

Stace Webley

Do you run IC130 daily to ensure the transactions are posted in the correct period?

Also, do you close on the next business day early morning? Like what time? Does that matter? Thanks!

Legacy Contributor

We run IC130 weekly. We run WH222, IC222 to ensure all documents for October have been processed, then we run IC130 again before starting month end close. The associate who runs the month end close, starts around 8 am (on the next business day - never Saturday or Sunday). So October close will be run on the first business day in November. We run PO sub system close, then AP sub system close, then IC sub system close (around 1 pm). Does that help?

Stace Webley

Yes, that is very helpful. Thank you.

We've been operating under the assumption that AP needs to close prior to PO. Is that incorrect?

Legacy Contributor

We close weekday month ends at 6pm and weekends at 2pm and tell the distribution folks to use after-hours/downtime procedures for the remainder of the day.

IC130 runs nightly and we are known to run it ad hoc if we want to have something "clean" on the GL like a cycle count we know is buggy.

AP must close prior to IC - not necessarily PO. Most of us like it to close prior to PO because (1) PO and IC are usually the same people and (2) The RNI could possibly get out of balance if there's an invoice stuck and the AP close posts it.

Stace Webley

@katvila Any special reason why you do your close on the weekend rather than the next working day? Is that just a matter of preference?

kheeter

Here's what works for us.

Billing closes first at the end of the last workday of the month.

We use a checklist on the 1st business day of the following month.
All of the report templates are saved with pertinent information & changes are made to the variable like date range, inventory names etc.

I've attached a copy if you're interested in modifying it for your own use.

Stace Webley

If you close AP, CB, PO, and IC on the next business day does that effect work in any way? Do the departments have to stop what they are doing? Can they continue inventory functions and entering invoices?

0911060553270289.pdf

Legacy Contributor

@Stace AP closes last business day - SCM closes last calendar day. Decisicion why predates me - but what I know:

At one point, they were closing it all during the wee hours of the 1st of the month. They then pushed it back to allow Finance that much more time to start the GL close.

Our distribution people are the reason we (SCM) close last calendar day. They compromised on some after hours manual entries to be done, but they drew the line at days worth.

Legacy Contributor

So everyone does it differently.
Well, back to the beginning. We have never closed on the last day of the month, because yes, it does affect business processes. We were always told to close PO before AP. So on Nov 1, AP runs AP175 to ensure all October invoices are processed. Then we do PO close, pass the baton off to AP, who does their close, and then they pass the baton back so we can close IC. It was recommended, in many sessions that we attended for our local user group, to close the systems in this order. By closing the first business day of the next month, we do no not have to stop any processing, everyone does their IC functions, receiving can receive, buyers can purchase, invoices can be entered, etc. No one has to work off hours etc. We have been on Lawson since 2001, and it works for us. Like I said, earlier, we do have a series of jobs that we run to ensure that all processing for that month have been completed. IC222, WH222, PO230, IC130 are all run and checked before starting. Guess it is a matter of how your management wants to do it.

Stace Webley

Great conversation. Thank you everyone for your input!

susan-kirkbride

How do you have your dates set so that receiving can still occur? We've always done month end on the last business day of the month but after seeing this, decided to do it on the first business day. Now when receiving tries to receive, they get "Date is after closing control date". Can our dates just be extended for IC/PO on GL01.2 without causing any issues?

jon-athey

We have closed on the last business day since 2004 and have never had any business process issues. Probably because there's no PO or IC activity on holidays or over the weekends. I don't have access to GL01 in our test system so I can't test this, but it seems that the closing control dates should still be the last day of the month even though you're performing the close on the next business day. So I'm not sure why you'd get that error.

Stace Webley

@Jordanchs Yes, I believe you will need to allow entries for two periods in GL01.2. The current period and the next period. This will allow work to continue the next day while closing takes place.

Does anyone agree or disagree?

susan-kirkbride

Stace - That is what we ended up doing and it solved the closing date problem and allowed me to complete month end. Thanks!

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