Blogs

Month End Close Process

By Monique Romero posted 02-08-2023 15:33

  

Do you need help with your Month End Close process?

We will be reviewing the month end close process to close your accounting periods. This will help you close your periods quickly and efficiently.

As a Zuora Support SME for Finance and Revenue, I have you covered! I will go over each step required so you can close your period, review your financials and upload to your GL System for a quick and efficient close.   

Additional Month-End Close Resources

  

=== Month End Process Questions ===

Q: Could you provide steps to do the Admin set-up ?
A: Click in to Admin Settings > Click on User Roles > Create new User roles and save
Click in to Admin Settings > Click on Manage Users > Click on the user name >Click edit on the user name > Select role from the dropdown and save

 

Q: Could you provide more detail on customising the report?
A: The reports in the accounting period: Download detail report > download revenue report can Not be edited, this is a canned report
The aging report in the Finance Settings > Configure Aging Balance Settings > You can change the name of the aging buckets and change the past due days and save

 

Q: Do you see allow blank accounting codes used by customers, or is it better to not leverage this feature and catch the blank codes during this close process?
A: Better to assign the accounting codes to the transaction types so that your journal entries created will not create additional work to research those accounting codes. You can change the billing setting to not allow accounting codes so that all accounting codes are added before you create any transactions.

 

Q: Would I be correct in assuming that if the revenue recognition date was not set correctly there is no way to do this retrospectivly?
A: If the revenue recognition dates are set incorrectly, you can use the Mass Updater tool for update revenue schedules to update the recognition dates

 

Q: Can you explain further what segmentation is used for exactly that you described when setting up account codes? Its a bit of a foreign concept to us.
A: A segment is an association with a field on a Zuora object. You can configure segments that correspond to how you segment your business; for example, you might configure segments in Zuora that correspond to your product lines, subsidiaries, or customers.

 

Q: Should the total in the Recognised column correspond to the total MRR as shown in the current MRR export report?
A: No because MRR does not include one time charges or usage fees.

 

Q: Could we use segments to separate out journal entries by billing period? I.e. by billing period for the subscription, such as annual vs monthly
A: No segments can not be used for subscription billing period. Here is the article that lists out the supported fields for segments:
https://knowledgecenter.zuora.com/CC_Finance/D_Finance_Settings/J_Segments/Fields_Supported_by_Segments

 

Q: If we haven't closed any accounting periods, is it possible to still make the journal runs? If so, is closing the period necessary?
A: You do not have to close the accounting period to create the journal runs. You can create the journal runs on a weekly basis and it will not duplicate any journal entries from the prior weeks JE's, It will pick up the entries that have not been included in the journal run for that specific accounting period.

 

Q: How can we deal the cases when accounting period is closed and we need to unbook one payment from account to another one? eg. Customer has 2 accounts and he paid two invoices by mistake on one account.
A: If a customer has two accounts and a payment is posted into one account, you can process an EXTERNAL Refund on the account with the extra payment and process an EXTERNAL Payment on the account receiving the payment. Since this on account level, it does not affect any invoices, unless you applied that payment to a future invoice.

 

Q: Is a refund possible if the payment came on an open invoice (it is only possible if client overpaid and we have that in customer account)?
A: Yes you can process the EXTERNAL refund on the invoice, it will open the invoice balance back up so the customer will still need to make the payment and then process the EXTERNAL Payment onto the correct account/invoice.

Here is the information on GL Segment and GL Segmentation Rules

Please test this in your sandbox prior to adding in your production tenant.

0 comments
63 views