A simple yet effective check.  It is best practice to keep your year lock dates in Xero up to date.  This avoids users posting transactions into years that have been closed.  It can also help to lock years when you are completing your year end workpapers to make sure the figures do not move as you are trying to work.  Whilst the year lock date can be overwritten with years being opened it should serve as a reminder to most to think long and hard about what they are doing.

If clients do not have advisor access in Xero they will not be able to open the year and back post items so think about the level of access rights that they have and why.  This can save time when completing year end accounts and finding that the opening balances no longer balance as someone has put a transaction in the wrong year.

For this alert Hindsight is simply looking at the year lock date in Xero and if it is older than 12 months flagging it up.  As accounts are prepared on an annual basis if we are working on a regular cycle this should work just fine.

Once you have updated the period lock date in Xero you can hit the complete button in Hindsight to let the system know you have completed your work.