Close a period

Close a month or week so its time entries are frozen for billing, using the four-step wizard with its advisory checklist, first-period boundary, re-authentication, and typed confirmation.

Written for
admin
Roles
owner, admin
Requires
Owner or Admin; Browser session with a recent re-authentication
Feature
time

A period is a calendar month or a Monday-to-Sunday week in the workspace time zone, depending on the Period length setting. Closing a period freezes the work facts of every time entry in it and is the step that makes the period available to billing runs. SAQ has no timesheet submit or approve workflow; the close is the lock, and it cannot be undone.

Before you start

  • You need the Owner or Admin role.
  • Closing happens in the browser. API keys and MCP tools cannot close a period; the close_period MCP tool always refuses.
  • The wizard asks you to re-authenticate; a recent authentication is required at the moment of closing.
  • Periods close in order. You cannot close a period while an earlier one is still open.
  • Check Settings → General first: Time zone and Period length are locked by the first close.

Close the period

  1. Open Billing → Periods. Open periods show Close period; closed periods show "Period closed on {date} by {person}".
  2. Before the first close, Show periods from lets you include empty periods before the earliest logged work. Close the earliest listed period first.
  3. Select Close period on the earliest open period. The wizard has four steps.

Step 1: Checklist

"Review these advisory findings before closing. Nothing here blocks the close." Each item expands to the affected people or tickets.

Item Meaning
Below weekly target A person with Expected minutes per week set has a week in this period with fewer minutes than expected, shown as "{actual} of {expected}". Partial weeks are prorated by working days.
Moved or re-attributed tickets Entries whose project or billing client no longer matches the ticket, or tickets moved or re-billed after the entry was logged. Consider re-attributing.
Older work in progress Billable, unbilled entries from before this period on open tickets billed When the ticket closes.
Open deliverables using time banks Open When the ticket closes tickets in this period whose policy resolves to a time bank. The bank will only be drawn when the ticket closes.
Missing rates Billable entries in this period with no consultant category, no billing client, or no rate on the client's rate card or project override for that category and date. Fix them now or they block the billing run.

Select Next.

Step 2: First period start

On the first close only, First period start is editable. It defaults to the period start of the earliest logged work, or to this period if that is earlier. "The first close locks this boundary. It cannot exclude existing time." The date must be a calendar boundary for the period length, and no time may exist before it. On later closes the field is read-only.

Step 3: Re-authenticate

Select Re-authenticate and confirm your identity with your password, a passkey, or your identity provider.

Step 4: Confirm irreversible close

"This period can never be reopened. Future changes to work facts require corrections in an open period." Type the period start date (for example 2026-08-01) and select Close period. SAQ confirms: "Period closed. Work facts are permanently frozen."

What closing does

The first close also fixes First period start and locks Time zone and Period length in workspace settings ("Time zone and period length are locked after the first close.").

For every entry in the period these facts are frozen: the person, the ticket, the project, the period, the work date, the start time, the time zone, the minutes, the note, and whether it is a correction. Nothing can be logged with a work date in the period, and entries cannot be moved into or out of it or deleted.

Owners and Admins can still change three things on an entry in a closed period until a run prices it: Billable, Billing client, and the consultant category. Everything else is changed by a correction in the open period.

SAQ also snapshots each entry's facts at the close, so the As of period close view in reports keeps showing the period as it was closed, whatever happens later.

Periods and billing runs

A billing run needs a closed period and runs a client's periods in order. Corrections made after a close bill in the period they are made. The run prices every entry up to the period end; there is no separate cutoff date.

There is no approval step

SAQ has no timesheet submission or approval workflow. Nobody submits a timesheet and nobody approves one. Closing the period is the lock, and only an Owner or Admin can do it. If you were asked to "approve the timesheet" for a month, what is meant is closing that period, after which the figures can no longer change except through a correction.

Before closing, the checklist in step 1 is the review step: it lists people under their weekly target, entries on tickets that moved, older work in progress, deliverables drawing on a time bank, and entries with no applicable rate. None of it blocks the close.

Common problems

Why can't I see Billing → Periods? The Billing section is shown to Owners and Admins only.

"Close the earlier periods first." An earlier period is still open. Close periods in calendar order.

"Confirm your identity to continue." The re-authentication has expired. Go back to step 3 and re-authenticate again.

"This operation is not available to API keys." or an MCP refusal. Period close is browser-only.

"The first period must start at a calendar boundary." Pick the first day of a month, or a Monday, depending on the period length.

"The first period would exclude logged work." Time exists before the chosen first period start. Choose an earlier boundary.

"The period is already closed." Someone else closed it while your wizard was open.

  • Correct time in a closed period Add a signed correction to a time entry whose period is closed, so the net time changes in today's open period while the original entry and the closed period stay untouched.
  • Run time and billing reports Report minutes and money by person, project, ticket, client, period, category, or outcome for a date range, as the current net or as each period stood when it was closed.
  • Run billing for a client Price a client's time for one closed period with the five-step run wizard, fix blockers, review billing descriptions and bank totals, commit, and void a run when needed.
  • Workspace settings The general settings of a workspace, name, address, ticket prefix, time zone, default language, default currency, and period length, and which of them lock after the first period close.
  • Period A period is a calendar month or week of time entries; closing it, in order and permanently, is the only lock in SAQ and the precondition for billing.
  • Periods and reports List periods, preview and close a period, and run time reports through the SAQ REST API; these operations are browser-session only.