Accounting Part 5: Lock Settings

Introduction

Welcome to the GuestWisely Lock Settings Tutorial!

Financial accuracy isn’t just a goal — it’s a non-negotiable necessity. As such, a lock setting feature is an indispensable part of any good accounting system. 

GuestWisely’s Lock Setting logic protects your accounting integrity by preventing inadvertent changes to finalized owner statements and historical accounting data, while giving you extensive control over how this is done.

Whether you're managing dozens of units or scaling up fast, mistakes can happen. A minor adjustment in the Expense Manager or a last-minute edit to an old booking can unknowingly impact past statements and worse, shake owner confidence.

That’s exactly what Lock Settings is built to prevent.

With intelligent, flexible locking options, you can safeguard your records your way, ensuring clean books and trustworthy reports every single time. You'll get a complete walkthrough of how Lock Settings work and how to tailor them to your operations using three modes:

• Auto-Lock: Let the system lock everything automatically after a defined time window (1–12 months) for long-term data protection.

• Manual Lock: Lock statements when you're ready, and unlock them if needed, until the auto-lock period kicks in.

• Unlocked: Keep data open and editable while you're still finalizing reports.

Finalized financial data should stay finalized. Lock Settings ensure that once your numbers are settled and remittances sent, they stay secure — immune to accidental edits and cascading errors, and fully auditable for future reviews.

Ready to take control of your financial data? Let’s dive in.

Lock Settings is a key component of the Accounting feature. Learn more about the Accounting module here.

Auto-Lock

The Auto-Lock feature is designed to act as a protective shield around your finalized financial data. Once the set lock period expires, statements and related records are automatically locked, and no further changes can be made.

The Auto-Lock ensures that once records are considered complete, they stay that way, untouched, consistent, and audit-ready. This helps maintain clean financial trails, avoid accidental edits, and uphold transparency with owners.
What Gets Locked Automatically:

• Owner statements

• Past bookings

• Owner expenses

• Financial and tax reports

To access this feature, go to Solutions > Accounting > Lock Settings.

The Auto-Lock logic gives you full control to choose a custom lock period 2between 1 and 12 months. If no configuration is applied, the system will default to a 12-month lock period.

Recommended Best Practice: 1–3 months for smoother reconciliation and timely audits.

You can adjust this setting anytime. Changes will apply to:

• All unlocked existing data

• All future data going forward

? Important: Once data is locked, it cannot be unlocked without paid developer support. Always review your settings carefully before applying them.

Manual Lock

To give you greater flexibility, the Manual Lock feature allows you to lock statements exactly when you're ready, before the auto-lock period takes effect.

This option is perfect for teams that finalize reports early and want to lock them immediately for added security, while still keeping the ability to unlock if last-minute adjustments are needed.

If you’ve set a 3-month auto-lock period but finish your statements in month 1, you can manually lock them right away. If changes come up later, you still have until the end of month 3 to unlock and adjust.

You’ll find the Manual Lock option in:

• Owner Statements

• Accounting

• Bookings

 Help prompts in each section to guide you through the locking process.

Once the auto-lock period begins, any manually locked statements become permanent, ensuring your finalized data remains secure.

Go to Owner Statement, select the specific Owner, then toggle on the Manual Lock button to lock their statement.

Unlocked

The Unlocked method allows full flexibility while you're still reviewing or finalizing financial records.

Before the auto-lock period takes effect, any manually locked Owner Statement can still be unlocked. This gives you room to make last-minute adjustments or corrections.

Go to Owner Statement, select the specific Owner, then toggle off the Manual Lock button to unlock their statement.

Once the auto-lock is enforced, statements are permanently locked. At that point, the Owner Statements can not be unlocked. All changes must be made through the Expense Manager, ensuring a proper audit trail and preserving data integrity.

Past Bookings

When an Owner Statement is locked, all associated past bookings are also locked.

However, there’s flexibility for ongoing or future bookings:

• If a booking spans into a new month, you can still make changes to that booking even after the current month's statement is locked.
  

• Any updates, whether positive or negative, will be automatically applied to the following month's owner statement.
  

• These adjustments will retain the original booking number, so you can easily track changes alongside the original record.

This approach maintains transparency and traceability while preserving the integrity of your locked statements.

Past Owner Expenses

When an owner statement is locked, all associated expenses are also locked to preserve historical accuracy. These expenses become non-editable.

To adjust a locked expense, use the Expense Manager to create an offsetting reconciliation—this keeps records transparent without changing finalized data.

For recurring expenses, you’ll see a message like:

This means while you can update the end date for future occurrences, you can not modify the expense for any past periods where the Owner Statement has already been locked.

This setup ensures your expense records stay accurate, auditable, and protected without compromising flexibility for future adjustments.

Reconciliations

Imagine you had a booking where the guest filed a complaint that took two months to resolve. If you decided to issue a refund of $100 after the statement had already been locked, you would perform a manual reconciliation. This way the refund is accurately recorded in your current/next statement period.

Adjustments after the statement has been locked, are done using the Expense Manager. Updates or reconciliations made through the Expense Manager will be reflected in the owner’s current statement period, keeping your records accurate and up to date.

Lock Settings is a key component of the Accounting feature. Learn more about the Accounting module here.