Governance: closing and locks
Close a month in one click, finalise the financial year, publish standard financial statements, and reopen a period with a reason that stays attached to the accounts.
Accounting that can be rewritten proves nothing. Governance is what turns your books into a register: periods closed, reports sent, and a trace of everything reopened.
It is the flexibility of a non-profit with the rigour of a register: you keep the right to correct, the members keep the right to know.
Close a month in one click
In Finance, Reports, Accounting section, Governance tab, choose the completed month and click Close and send the report.
- The month is frozen: no further entry, correction or cancellation dated within it.
- The closing PDF report is generated on the server: net income, outflows, result, cash by source and income by category, in the church's language.
- The report goes automatically by email to the pastor and the finance leaders, and the sending is logged.
After sending, the screen shows the list of recipients who actually received the email. A report you believe was sent and a report received are not the same thing.
Tip: the order that avoids reopenings is always the same. Reconcile the bank, post the depreciation charge if it is December, run the consistency check, correct what it flags, then close.
The report is an official document: it carries the "Issued by" mention with the name of whoever closes, and a verification QR code. Anyone scanning it can confirm its authenticity, without seeing its contents. See QR verification.
Note: the issuer is the treasurer or administrator who closes, not the pastor. The signature on the letterhead is the pastor's, who is here the recipient of the report. Confusing the two would have someone sign a document they did not produce.
Closing a month also freezes every earlier month: the lock covers "up to". Each month already closed stays accessible: select it and click Resend the report to regenerate and resend it by email, without touching the lock.
Finalise the financial year
Once the year is over, the Governance tab lets you finalise it and publish the annual financial statements, the piece you present to the general meeting.
Choose the year: Sanctumel first shows the figures (income, expenses, result) with the previous year for reference. You look before you sign. Then Finalise the year freezes the books at 31 December, generates the document and sends it to the leaders.
The annual report follows the expected structure of non-profit financial statements:
- Identification: your church, the year, the currency, the date of preparation and the issuer.
- Result of the year with comparison: income, expenses and result, set against the previous year and the percentage change. A figure alone cannot be read, it is compared.
- Project accounting: for each campaign, opening balance, inflows, outflows, closing balance, distinguishing restricted money from unrestricted. A gift earmarked "building" is not available cash, and the members must see it.
- Monthly breakdown: all twelve months, including those with no movement. An empty month is information, not a hole.
- Income by category.
- Notes: the method used, the number of entries covered, cancelled entries excluded from totals, and periods reopened after publication with their reason.
- Certification: "Issued by", an approval line for the governing body, and the verification QR code.
As with the monthly report, Resend regenerates and resends the statements of a year already finalised, and View the PDF opens exactly the same document as the one sent by email.
Note: finalising a year only moves the lock to 31 December of that year. If your church has already closed months of the following year, that more recent lock is kept: finalising 2025 does not reopen January 2026.
Tip: before finalising the year, post the year's depreciation charge. Once the year is frozen, posting it will require a reopening, and it will appear as such in your statements.
Reopening a period
It is possible, but it is no longer a simple click. Moving back or lifting the lock reopens months already closed, and sometimes already sent to the board.
Sanctumel therefore shows you first what you are about to reopen: the list of periods concerned, their published result, the date they were closed and the number of recipients who received the report. A report "never sent" and a report "sent to 4 recipients" do not carry the same weight.
You then have to write a reason of at least 10 characters. That reason is not a formality:
- it stays attached to the period;
- it appears in the audit log under a distinct action, not under a bland settings update;
- it appears in the annual financial statements.
In other words, a period published then reopened can no longer go unnoticed.
Warning: write a reason a third party will understand in two years. "Correction" says nothing. "November electricity invoice received in February, not accrued" says everything.
Who can do what
The Governance tab only appears to people with the matching permission. Closing, reopening and finalising the year are acts of governance, not data entry.
Tip: in a small church where one person keeps the books, still give the permission to a second. A close blocked by an absence is a frequent cause of late accounts.
Common mistakes
- Closing before reconciling the bank. The report goes out, then an unexplained line appears, and you have to reopen.
- Closing several months at once at year end. Since the lock covers "up to", it works, but you lose the monthly trace and you send the board reports it should have received as they came.
- Reopening without telling the board. The reason will appear in the annual statements. It is always better to announce it than to let it be discovered.
- Never closing at all. Your books stay a draft indefinitely, and nothing prevents inserting a backdated entry.