How does locking financial data work in Farm Focus?

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How does locking financial data work in Farm Focus?

Locking financial dates helps maintain the accuracy of your financial records by preventing unauthorised changes once your data is finalised.

30 Sept 2025
Knowledge

Title

How does locking financial data work in Farm Focus?

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How-does-locking-financial-data-work-in-Farm-Focus

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Question

How does locking financial data work in Farm Focus?

Answer

Why use the lock date feature? - Farmers

Locking your financial data ensures the integrity of your records and reduces the risk of accidental edits. It helps accountants manage reporting periods and keeps your financial information reliable.

Benefits

Prevents accidental or unauthorised changes to financial data.
Ensures consistency in reports.
Gives confidence that the records used for compliance and decision-making are accurate.

Who can lock or unlock financial dates?

Only accountants can apply or remove a lock on financial data.

NOTE: Your farm must be linked to your accountant’s workspace before they can apply a lock.

What happens when financial data is locked?

When a date is locked, all users with access to the farm (including farmers, bankers, and consultants) have restricted access to certain areas:

You cannot:

Edit invoices or transactions dated on or before the lock date.
Use the Match function for these transactions.
Create or edit events in the Livestock screen for the locked period.
Make changes in the Actuals screen for the locked date or any earlier date.

If you attempt any of these actions, you’ll see a warning that the data is locked.

You can:

View locked invoices and transactions in read-only format. These entries are clearly marked for easy identification.

How to check if your data is locked

Go to Settings > Financials.
Look for a warning message confirming that the data is locked. If your database is not locked, there will be no information about Lock a date.

Unlocking a locked financial year

If changes are needed after a lock is applied:

Consult your accountant – They can unlock your financial year if needed.

We strongly advise consulting with your accountant first.
Contact Farm Focus Customer Support – Only in exceptional circumstances (e.g. changing accountants), the organisation admin can contact Customer Support to unlock the year.

Exceptions to the lock

If you have a partially paid invoice showing in the Needs Action screen for a locked period, you can still match it to a transaction that sits outside the locked period.
1. This will not affect your accountants reporting, because the amount owing at the balance date has already been included in your reporting.
2. A common example is a Hire Purchase invoice that spans across several financial years.
Files imported from external sources (e.g. Invoice Scanner, File Upload, or Bank file) with dates in the locked period can be edited, but only if the date is changed to fall outside the locked period.

Scenario

After your accountant finalises the year-end, they apply a lock to prevent changes. Later, you upload a bank file that includes a transaction with a date in the locked period. You cannot edit it unless you change the transaction date to a period outside the lock.

After your accountant finalises the year-end, they apply a lock to prevent changes. Later, you upload an invoice (using the invoice scanner) with a date that falls before or on the lock date: You can import and edit it, but you won’t be able to save it. If you try to save it, you’ll see an error on the invoice date field. To save it with that earlier date, your accountant will need to temporarily unlock the period, save the invoice, and then relock it. If the invoice date is after the lock date, you can save it without any issue.

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How does locking financial data work in Farm Focus?