The Billing Lock Date helps protect your past invoices, payments, and credit notes from unauthorized changes. This feature allows you to lock all billing actions up to a specific date, ensuring your accounting records remain accurate and consistent.
Use this feature if you manage billing data and want to avoid accidental or unauthorized edits to finalized records. This reduces mistakes, enhances reporting accuracy, and streamlines accounting workflows.
In this article, you will learn how to set the billing lock date, manage permissions, and understand what actions become restricted.
Summary
Set a billing lock date to prevent changes to past invoices, payments, and credit notes.
Control who can change or remove the billing lock date using admin roles.
Protect your accounting records from accidental or unauthorized edits.
Understand which actions are blocked when the billing lock is active.
Learn how automated invoices behave when they fall within a locked period.
Update or remove the lock if changes to past data are necessary.
What is the Billing Lock Date?
The Billing Lock Date is a control feature in OfficeRnD Flex that prevents changes to billing data (such as invoices, payments, and credit notes) before a chosen date. It helps protect finalized records for accounting and reporting purposes.
When and why to use the billing lock date
Use the Billing Lock Date when your team completes a billing cycle and you want to close the period for reporting or tax purposes. This feature is helpful if your accounting team depends on OfficeRnD Flex data for accurate financial records.
You can update the lock date after monthly invoicing is complete to prevent accidental edits or deletions. Updating the lock date each month ensures the security of your historical data.
What you can achieve
With the billing lock date, you can:
Prevent changes to invoices, payments, credit notes, or overpayments before the lock date.
Block manual bill runs with issue dates that fall within locked periods.
Control who can manage or remove the lock using admin permissions.
Ensure that automated invoices in locked periods are flagged as 'Awaiting Approval' so they don't go unnoticed.
For example, if your team finalizes all invoices for a month, you can set a lock to stop further changes. If an automated invoice falls within the locked period, the system generates it with an Awaiting Approval status and notifies your admins. This ensures no changes go unnoticed.
Admins must remove or update the billing lock date if adjustments are required, and then reapply it after changes are made.
Set a billing lock date
To set a billing lock date:
Go to Settings > Billing > Billing Rules and select Don't update billing details of issued invoices.
Go to Billing > Invoices and click Set Billing Lock Date.
Set a billing lock date. Creating and editing billing documents for the time up to the selected date will be prohibited.
Click Update. Now, only admins with an Owner role or teammates with specific permissions (see below ↓) can modify invoices, credit notes, payments, and other related items through the UI, Import, and API.
Note: If you must change the billing information during the locked period, you must first remove the Billing Lock Date, apply the changes, and then set a new Billing Lock Date.
Grant permissions for setting and changing the billing lock date
As an Owner, you must decide who else has permission to set and change the billing lock date. To manage that, you must create a specific role.
Go to Settings > Account Details > Admin Roles.
Click Add Role.
Open the Billing tab and give "Edit" rights for Locking Billing Period.
Give the rest of the needed permissions for the new role.
Click Save.
Go to Settings > Account Details > Admin Users and assign the role to the relevant person(s).
Actions locked during the billing lock period
When you set a billing lock date, the following actions will become unavailable:
Creating, editing, deleting, or voiding:
An invoice with an issue date within a locked period.
A credit note with an issue date within a locked period.
A payment or overpayment with a payment date within the locked period.
Detaching any line items from:
An invoice with an issue date within a locked period.
A credit note with an issue date within a locked period.
Executing a manual Bill Run with an issue date within a locked period.
If you try to execute any of the listed actions, the system will give you the following message: "This document falls under a locked billing period. You won't be able to edit it. If you need to make an adjustment, change your organization's billing lock date, or contact a teammate with the needed permissions."
Note: If Automated Invoice Generation is enabled and the invoice's issue date falls within the locked period, it will be generated with an Awaiting Approval status. A notification about the awaiting invoices will be sent to the designated email address. To approve the invoices, an admin (who has permission to create invoices) will have to change the issue date to a date outside the locked period. Learn more about User Permissions.
Remove the billing lock date
If you want to completely remove the billing lock date and unlock all billing actions:
Go to Billing > Invoices and click Set Billing Lock Date.
Click the X icon
next to the date.
Click Update.
Tip: If you don't want to remove the billing lock period completely, you can adjust the lock date to unlock a specific time for when you want to change billing documents.
FAQ: Billing lock date
What is a Billing Lock Date?
What is a Billing Lock Date?
A Billing Lock Date is a feature in OfficeRnD Flex that prevents creating, modifying, or deleting any billing records before a specified date. This ensures past billing data remains accurate and unchanged for accounting purposes.
Who can set and manage the Billing Lock Date?
Who can set and manage the Billing Lock Date?
By default, only teammates with an Owner role can manage the Billing Lock Date. However, you can grant this permission to other teammates by creating a custom role.
How can I grant other teammates permission to change the Billing Lock Date?
How can I grant other teammates permission to change the Billing Lock Date?
Go to Settings > Account Details > Admin Roles.
Click Add Role.
Under Billing, activate the Locking Billing Period permission.
Save the role.
Assign this new role to teammates via Settings > Account Details > Admin Users.
What happens after setting the Billing Lock Date?
What happens after setting the Billing Lock Date?
Once set, billing information, such as invoices, payments, and Credit Notes dated before the lock date, cannot be edited or deleted unless by authorized personnel.
What actions are restricted by the Billing Lock Date?
What actions are restricted by the Billing Lock Date?
When a Billing Lock Date is active, you cannot:
Create, edit, or delete invoices, credit notes, and payments dated before the lock date.
Void invoices, credit notes, or payments within the locked period.
Execute a manual Bill Run with an issue date within the locked period.
Detach line items from invoices or credit notes issued before the lock date.
Attempting these actions triggers an error message informing you that the record is within a locked period.
Will I see an error if I attempt a locked action?
Will I see an error if I attempt a locked action?
You will see the following error message: "This document falls under a locked billing period. You won't be able to edit it. If you must make an adjustment, change your organization's billing lock date or contact a teammate with the needed permissions."
How does Automated Invoice Generation handle the Billing Lock Date?
How does Automated Invoice Generation handle the Billing Lock Date?
If Automated Invoice Generation is active and an invoice's issue date falls within a locked period, the invoice will generate with an Awaiting Approval status. An admin must change the invoice issue date to outside the locked period to approve and finalize it.
How do I modify billing information within a locked period?
How do I modify billing information within a locked period?
To change billing details locked by the Billing Lock Date, temporarily remove the lock date, apply the necessary changes, and then set the lock date again.