In most instances transactions and payments are posted to the current accounting period. However, SchoolLeader does allow you some flexibility. Although you can never receive payments into any period other than the current one, you are allowed to post Transactions to the NEXT accounting period following the current one. However, you cannot post any transactions beyond this NEXT accounting period.
SchoolLeader allows you to do this so you can setup for the following periods tuition charges before the accounting period is actually closed. This is useful if you want to advance bill for services but you still want the services to be recorded in the accounting period where they will be rendered.
Since all charges (current or advance) always show up on a Guardians account statement you can use this feature to provide statements reflecting future charges and receive payment for those charges.
For example, many schools try and collect for the following weeks tuition on the preceeding Friday. If (for other reasons) you still wanted your accounting periods to run from Sunday to Saturday, you could apply your charges to the following period and begin collecting at the end of the current period.
Payments received in the current period for advance (future) charges are still considered Pre-Payments and will not be journalized until bookclose of the following period