Lock past year accounts to prevent changes

stephencheah

Is there a way to lock past year accounts after they have been closed to prevent unauthorised changes?

AlexL

Hey @stephenthor . There is no way to lock previous years. The purpose of this in Wave is to be able to access historical data so you can pull up reports and make adjustments at any point. I can definitely understand the want to close these off if you think someone who has access to your account may make unauthorized changes, but this is not currently a function within Wave.

MerlinAccounts_UK

@stephencheah said:
Is there a way to lock past year accounts after they have been closed to prevent unauthorised changes?

As @alexlewiszarkos states, Wave doesn't offer this BUT what you could do is carry out year end journals to zero out the Profit & Loss nominal account balances and post to the retained earnings account on the balance sheet, and similarly download a closing trial balance report before performing the journal. This way you will have two points of reference to go back to BUT also the expenses accounts for prior years reports (when you generate them) should show NIL closing balances UNLESS an historic data entry has been made (for example due to keying in an incorrect date)

stephencheah

Thanks Andrew and Alex for your responses.

ZuV

I miss this feature, too.
It seems to me quite simple to implement, just to lock previous years.
It is very easy to make a mistake by anyone in the team... accidentally change something (amount, account, ) and suddenly the final report doesn't match. I have experienced that already.
By adding such lock function, you let the user decide either he wants to use it or not.
Looking forward

alexmerrill

I really need this feature as well. So I can keep running reports but not accidentally make a change. I just found a $99 item uploaded to 2018 as I was preparing 2019 taxes. Grr.

May

I think the lock function is very much needed.

ViveanReady

Yes the lock function is needed with a warning that "YOU ARE ABOUT TO MAKE A CANGE TO A PRIOR YEAR THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN FINALIZED"

richie1780

I have read the forums and know this is "on the feature list" but "not a high priority". The lack of this feature will be causing me to move to another company. This feature is something that is necessary to preserve the integrity of the data. Once I provide my company information to the accountant for taxes, it doesn't need to change. I have wasted more time auditing where there was a change between what I sent my accountant and what my books are now, to find one or two small transaction discrepencies.

NancyC

Thanks everyone for sharing feedback on how having this feature can improve your experience with using Wave. At this stage I have no further news on when/if this particular feature would be available but we appreciate all added insight.

Vertigo

This would be extremely useful. Something as simple as an alert - ‘you are about to make a change to your previous fiscal year - do you wish to continue’ would save me so many headaches!

Please consider making this update a priority! Thanks.

vlado

There is a need for this feature by more people than you think. Please add it to the list of improvements. As others have mentioned it is far too easy to make mistakes and mess up past FY data.

agwest

This feature is desperately needed. Especially with synched bank accounts that occasionally will download duplicate transactions to a previous year. I am having to go back and re-reconcile most of 2019 and 2020 because of this. Ouch! Also, just to be a valid and secure record of previous years' bookkeeping. Please implement this feature. This is standard in accounting programs like QB, Xero, Sage, etc.

glenn_lidstone

I love Waveapps but I agree that this feature is desperately required! All standard accounting software packages have mechanisms to lock the year end. Somewhat related to this, it would be nice to have a feature in Waveapps that recognizes companies that use a year end different than the calendar year end.
Please provide a feature to lock the year end, recognizing that some companies do not use the calendar year as their year end. I suppose there should be a mechanism to unlock a locked year as well (perhaps if journal entries are required).

sydney03_

I agree, this is critical. Just came across a year end balance for a prior year that had suddenly changed from what was finalized at the time. It is now affecting current reconciliation, will have to go back through years of data to find it. So unnecessary and frustrating, I am a long term and strong supporter of waveapp, also use their payroll, but this is making me reconsider and look to other options.

Swilly1000

Lot of posts and zero action by Wave.

Locking years is an essential function to prevent corruption of data from previously closed periods. It's absolutely ridiculous that this check is not built into the software to prevent inevitable data entry into previously closed periods.

Bush league.

befferk

So, going on THREE YEARS since this post was started, and this still isn't an option?

I totally understand that Wave is a FREE app. However, how about implementing a small fee for a few added features that some of us would be willing to pay a little for? Like $10 a month to have the ability to close prior periods, and have proper bank reconciliations for starters. You would DEFINITELY get more people to come over from QuackBooks.....

ktm_wave

I really hope Wave would add this important feature, it's data integrity we are talking about here.