The first week of the month in many finance teams goes to one task: making the sales system, the stock system and the bank agree with the ledger. Invoices are exported and keyed in. Stock value is estimated from a count. Expenses arrive in a spreadsheet.
None of that is accounting judgement. It is transport, and transport can be removed.
Posting from the source
In Accounting, a document posts its own journal in the same database transaction that saves it. If the invoice commits, the entry exists. If the entry cannot post, because the account is inactive or the date is locked, the invoice does not save either.
| Source document | What posts |
|---|---|
| Invoice issued | Receivable against revenue and output VAT. Credit notes post the reverse |
| Customer payment | Cash or bank against receivable, plus any exchange gain or loss |
| Supplier bill | Goods-received-not-invoiced, project cost or expense, input VAT, against payable |
| Stock movement | Inventory against project cost, cost of goods sold or an adjustment account |
| Retail sale, return, void | Tenders against sales, VAT and cost of goods |
| Payroll run | Salaries expense against payable, insurance and the end-of-service provision |
| Fleet, farm, project and lease costs | Expense by category against cash or bank |
Postings go to accounts by role, such as receivable or sales revenue, so you can remap them on one page instead of editing the code behind each document.
Controls that live in the database
Accounting software is only as trustworthy as what stops a bad entry. These are enforced by the database, not by a screen:
- Every entry must balance. A deferred constraint refuses one that does not.
- Journal lines are append-only. An entry can be changed only by marking it reversed, once.
- Lines post only to active accounts that are not group headings, and not on or before the lock date.
- An account that already has postings cannot change type.
Mistakes are corrected by reversal, which leaves both the error and the fix visible. There is no edit button on a posted journal.
What the close looks like
With posting handled, the checks that remain are the ones that need a person.
- Run the trial balance and confirm it balances, which it will.
- Open the Periods page. It compares the receivable, payable and inventory accounts with their sub-ledgers, such as the aging reports and the stock valuation, and shows manual journals separately so you can see what was keyed by hand. Inventory carries a small tolerance for per-movement rounding.
- Review manual journals for the month, which should be few.
- Set the lock date. Documents dated inside a locked period post on the first open day instead, and a manual entry there is refused.
- At year end, run the close. It posts a closing entry on the fiscal year end and sets the lock date. The income statement leaves closing entries out so the year still reads correctly.
What it doesn't do
A few things are outside the module, and a finance lead should know before relying on it:
- There is no bank reconciliation, no budgets, and no fixed assets or depreciation.
- Direct costs such as farm, fleet and lease expenses are treated as paid when they are entered.
- Retail paid-ins, paid-outs and over-or-short are not posted.
- Prepayment invoices post as revenue.
- Price variances between order and bill stay in goods-received-not-invoiced until you clear them.
If you need a bank reconciliation, it happens outside Circumz today.
Starting properly
Accounting is switched on per company with a go-live date. Documents before that date do not post, and opening balances go in as a single opening journal. The accounting go-live guide walks through the order of work.