How is a lock date handled in QuickBooks Online?
What is a lock date in QuickBooks Online?
QuickBooks Online offers the option to "Close the Books" by finalising financial statements for a specified period, with password protection to prevent any alterations to that information. By setting a lock/closing date in QuickBooks Online, you can stop people from making changes to transactions which were done during a past period. Once you've determined a closing date, users cannot add or edit any transactions in QuickBooks Online if the transaction date is earlier than the closing date.
Learn more about lock dates here.
How ApprovalMax handles documents with a lock date (closing date)
Administrators of QuickBooks Online Organisations have a choice of two options for the handling of documents with a date prior to the lock date:
- Either such documents are blocked from approval until their date gets changed manually in QuickBooks Online or ApprovalMax
- Or their date gets automatically changed to "Lock date + 1 day" after approval*
Please note: the date will only get changed automatically
to "Lock date + 1 day" if the setting in QuickBooks Online to "Allow changes after viewing a warning" without entering a password has been activated:

This is how it works in Bills:
In the Bill Creation and Approval workflow, click on the gear icon (⚙):
Select your preferred option:
- If the first option is selected, documents dated earlier than the lock date will be locked:


- If the second option is selected, the date of a document will be changed automatically to "Lock Date +1" after its approval:


It works the same way for Expenses:
It works the same way for Journal Entries:
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