Weel can't place a reimbursement into a Xero accounting period that's currently locked, whether you're shifting it forward into this period or back into one that's since closed. This applies from Coding Required through to an already approved and paid reimbursement. Here's what happens at each stage, and your options if it's stuck with a locked-period export error.
How It Works
- Xero's own lock date: Xero refuses any bill dated on or before its lock date, and Weel's locked-period logic only moves dates out of a locked period, never in.
- Already Approved reimbursements: Weel never backdates an approved reimbursement; payout happens on schedule, and the locked-period error only appears later, on export to Xero.
- Payment-retry exception: If a payment on an already-exported bill fails because of the lock, Weel automatically shifts the Xero date forward and retries once.
- Manual date edits: Changing an exported reimbursement's date to a locked period updates Weel only; Xero keeps its old date until you pick an open one.
- Payout stays separate from bookkeeping: The employee gets paid on their normal schedule regardless; a locked-period error only affects the Xero sync, never the payment itself.
Good to know
- Before approval, there's no way to keep the original date: A pending reimbursement (Coding Required or Waiting for Approval) auto-shifts to the next open day under Locked accounting periods (Settings > AI and automations, on by default), and the approver must confirm the change before approving.
- Two ways to fix a stuck export: Unlock the period in Xero and manually sync the transaction to retry it right away, or skip unlocking altogether by entering the reimbursement directly in Xero and reconciling the Weel bank-feed line against it from the Reconcile tab, not Account Transactions, which causes duplicate reconciliations.
- Error messages to expect: "Accounting period is locked in Xero. Unlock period in Xero and manually sync transaction," or, for a previously exported item, "Updates to this transaction cannot export into Xero because accounting period is locked in Xero."