The quick answer
Go to Setup → Accounting → Manage Accounting Periods and click the checklist icon on the period. Work the tasks in order: the locking tasks (Lock A/R, Lock A/P, Lock All, and Lock Payroll where Payroll is on), choosing subsidiaries in OneWorld, then the review tasks, then Eliminate Intercompany Transactions, waiting for its Status subtab to show a Submission Status of Complete before marking it done. Open the Close task and choose Close Period. To reopen, open the same task, enter a justification, and choose Reopen Period.
The checklist is generated from your account's features and structure, so an account with OneWorld and intercompany management gets elimination tasks that a single-entity account never sees. Each task records who completed it and when. The screenshots use sample data and a fictional operating company.
Before you start
The period has to exist and be open on Manage Accounting Periods. If earlier periods are still open you can usually still lock, but the later tasks and the close itself can stay unavailable until those periods are closed. Your role needs Edit or Full on Manage Accounting Periods and Override Period Restrictions to work the checklist and to reopen; individual tasks can ask for more, such as Journal Entry or Currency permissions.
For elimination, the account needs OneWorld with intercompany elimination enabled, an elimination subsidiary in the hierarchy, and the intercompany accounts, transaction lines and, where used, automated intercompany entities set up. In a Multi-Book account, pick the accounting book in the Filters section before opening the checklist; task and period statuses are per book.
01 · Open the period's checklist
On Manage Accounting Periods, expand the year and quarter, find the period, and click its checklist icon. The Period Close Checklist lists every task the account generates for that period, with a Go To Task arrow on the ones you can work now and a lock on the ones that wait for a prerequisite. Status shows not started, in progress or complete; Modified By records the user tied to the status change, which for a partly locked subsidiary task is whoever first moved it to In Progress.
02 · Lock the subledgers
Open Lock A/R. In OneWorld the task lists the subsidiaries; use Mark All or tick them individually, then Submit. The task shows In Progress until every applicable subsidiary is locked, and Complete once they are. Repeat for Lock A/P and Lock All.
Back on the checklist, confirm each locking task shows Complete; in OneWorld that means every required subsidiary is locked. System Notes on a task hold the who-and-when if you need it later.
03 · Run intercompany elimination
Know what you expect to eliminate before you run anything. Here Larkfield US carries a 2,500.00 intercompany receivable from Larkfield Europe for June, posted by journal JE-1788. That's the balance the run should remove at the consolidated level.
Finish the prerequisite tasks the checklist puts ahead of it first, such as revaluing open foreign currency balances and calculating consolidated exchange rates where those are enabled. Then open Eliminate Intercompany Transactions, check the period and any accounting book, classification or location values, click Run Intercompany Elimination, and save the request. Watch the Status subtab: the run is done when its Submission Status reads Complete. The percentage is progress information, not the test. Don't mark the task complete or close the period before that, because the elimination journals don't exist until the run finishes.
04 · Review what elimination produced
On the Results subtab, each row is one elimination run, naming the elimination subsidiary, currency and amount and linking to the journal it generated. Open the journal and confirm it posted in the elimination subsidiary and that the lines reflect the qualifying intercompany balances; in this example that's the receivable and payable offsetting each other, but revenue, expense, inventory and currency lines appear when those qualify, and some runs add reversal entries. Drill into a line if you want the source behind it.
If a transaction you expected to be eliminated isn't there, check that it actually posted and that its accounts and entity relationships qualify. Re-running the process doesn't fix a transaction that never qualified.
05 · Close the period
Once the run is complete, return to the elimination task page, use Mark Task Complete, and go back to the checklist. Finish any remaining tasks it shows, then open the Close task and choose Close Period. Verify the result on Manage Accounting Periods: the period shows closed with its locks in place, and in a Multi-Book account, check it for the book you selected.
06 · Reopen the period
Open the closed period's checklist and its Close task again. Enter a justification, such as correcting a misposted accrual, and choose Reopen Period. Reopening needs Edit or Full on Manage Accounting Periods plus Override Period Restrictions, and it lets people post again, so it's not a paperwork step. The period returns to Open and the System Notes keep the close and the reopen with the date and the user (first opening a task can add an entry too). Check the later periods straight away: reopening an earlier period can reopen closed periods after it, which then need their close tasks redone.
Common questions
Why does a task show a lock icon or sit unavailable?
A prerequisite hasn't been completed, usually an earlier task on the list or an earlier period that's still open. In OneWorld the lock tasks stay In Progress until every applicable subsidiary is locked. Permissions and accounting-book dependencies can also hide or block a task.
What does Lock All do compared with Lock A/R and Lock A/P?
Lock A/R stops receivables posting for the period and Lock A/P stops payables posting. Lock All locks A/R, A/P and, where Payroll is enabled, payroll. In OneWorld each of them lets you pick subsidiaries, and none is complete until all the required subsidiaries are locked.
Why does my checklist have different tasks from another account?
The list is generated from the account's enabled features, subsidiaries and accounting books. Intercompany elimination only appears with the intercompany features on; currency, inventory, revenue, payroll and multi-book settings add their own tasks. What a given user sees can also depend on permissions and subsidiary access.
Does closing a period stop all posting?
It stops GL-impacting posting transactions from being added or changed in that period. Non-posting transactions such as sales orders and purchase orders can still be created and edited. Users with Override Period Restrictions can post to locked periods, but a closed period generally has to be reopened for GL changes.
What does Override Period Restrictions allow?
It lets a role add or edit posting transactions in locked periods, and it's required to reopen a closed period. Give it to the few roles that need controlled override, because anything posted under it changes balances you may already have reported.
What happens when I reopen a period?
You enter a justification, the change lands in System Notes, and the period accepts GL-impacting corrections again until you close it. Reopening an earlier period can reopen later closed periods too, so check them and close them again once the correction is in.
Why did elimination create no journal?
Either the run hasn't reached Submission Status Complete yet, there were no eligible intercompany balances or transactions in the period, or the setup doesn't qualify them for elimination. Check the Results and Status subtabs before running it again.