Lab: Closing March 2026

Before you start

Open the demo in a new tab:

• URL: https://aion-erp.vercel.app
• Username: admin
• Password: Admin123

Your mission: Close the March 2026 accounting period. Verify the trial balance. Generate the income statement and balance sheet for the period.

Estimated time: 10 minutes.

Step 1 — Open the period close dashboard

Navigate to: General Ledger → Period Close → March 2026

You’ll see the 8-step dashboard. Each step has a status indicator. If this is a fresh demo, most will be “Not Started.”

Step 2 — Costing period close

Click into Costing Period Close → Run.

AION calculates the March period average costs for all items, closes open job orders, and locks the cost layer.

Watch the status move: Running → Completed. Note the output: a summary of items costed, any variance batches posted.

Check: navigate to Inventory → Periods. March should now show as “Costing Closed.”

Step 3 — Depreciation

Click Depreciation → Run.

AION runs the batch depreciation for all fixed assets. Most demos have 20-50 seeded assets.

Watch the journal batch get posted: DR Depreciation Expense, CR Accumulated Depreciation, typically 10,000-30,000 SAR depending on the fleet size.

Step 4 — Payroll posting

If March payroll has been approved in the demo (it should be), click Payroll → Post to GL.

The payroll SLA resolver posts:

• Salary Expense
• Benefits Expense
• GOSI Liability
• AP — Salaries

For the Oasis Fresh demo (~20 seeded employees), typical monthly payroll is 150,000-250,000 SAR.

Step 5 — FX revaluation

Click FX Revaluation → Run.

If the demo has any foreign-currency balances (USD supplier accounts, for example), AION revalues them at the month-end rate and posts the unrealized FX gain/loss.

On a small demo this may be a tiny number (a few hundred SAR). In a real deployment with more forex exposure it could be thousands.

Step 6 — Allocations

Click Allocations → Run All.

AION runs every defined allocation rule. Typical in the seeded data:

• Rent allocated from HQ to Manufacturing + Distribution cost centers
• Utilities allocated by square meter
• IT overhead allocated by headcount

Watch multiple journal batches post in sequence.

Step 7 — Bank reconciliation

Click into Bank Reconciliation. For each bank account in the demo:

1. Import the seeded bank statement (or create one if needed — the demo has sample CSVs)
2. Let AION auto-match
3. Review any unmatched items
4. Accept the reconciliation

Bank GL balance should now equal the reconciled statement balance.

Step 8 — Subledger close

For each subledger in order: AP → AR → Inventory → Fixed Assets → Cash, click Close Period.

For each, AION shows the tie check:

• AP subledger: 347,500 SAR = GL 2100: 347,500 SAR ✓
• AR subledger: 612,300 SAR = GL 1100: 612,300 SAR ✓
• Inventory subledger: 1,240,000 = GL 1200+1210+1220: 1,240,000 ✓
• etc.

If all tie, close each. No breaks = no investigation needed. (If there were breaks, you’d drill in and fix before proceeding.)

Step 9 — GL close

Navigate to General Ledger → Periods → March 2026 → Close.

Confirm the dialog. The period status flips from Open to Closed.

Verify the close

Run the three core reports:

Trial Balance

Navigate to General Ledger → Reports → Trial Balance → as of March 31, 2026.

You should see:

• Total debits = Total credits (trial balance balances, by definition)
• Every GL account with its ending balance
• Drill-down capability on any account

Income Statement

Navigate to General Ledger → Reports → Income Statement → March 2026.

Shows revenue, COGS, gross profit, operating expenses, EBITDA, net income.

For the Oasis Fresh demo, typical March numbers might look like:

Line	Amount
Revenue	~2,400,000 SAR
COGS	~1,440,000 SAR
Gross Profit	~960,000 SAR (40%)
Operating Expenses	~420,000 SAR
EBITDA	~540,000 SAR
Depreciation	~25,000 SAR
Net Income	~515,000 SAR

Balance Sheet

Navigate to General Ledger → Reports → Balance Sheet → March 31, 2026.

Shows assets, liabilities, and equity. Assets = Liabilities + Equity (by definition).

What you just did

In ~10 minutes, you ran a full 8-step month-end close. In a real factory running on Excel, this is 7-10 days of work for a team of 2-3 accountants.

The saving isn’t just hours. It’s:

• Earlier financial visibility — the owner sees March numbers on April 3rd, not April 18th
• Tighter working capital — cash position, AR aging, and AP cash needs are all current within 2 days of month-end
• Audit-ready books — every JE has a source, every subledger ties, every period is cleanly cut
• Sleep — the CFO doesn’t spend weekends chasing reconciliations

What would have been different with Excel

• Manual JEs for depreciation, allocations, FX revaluation (5-10 entries each, by hand)
• Subledger ties checked by exporting to Excel and eyeballing
• Bank rec done with paper statements and yellow highlighters
• Month-end “cutoff” is whatever date the accountant gets to the invoices pile
• The trial balance comes out on the 15th, already 15 days stale

Also runs in Pearl F&B (Qatar) and Nile Foods (Egypt)

The 8-step period close runs identically across all three demo Business Groups. Each closes independently in its own currency and tax regime, then group-level consolidation rolls them up.

	🇸🇦 Oasis Fresh (Saudi)	🇶🇦 Pearl F&B (Qatar)	🇪🇬 Nile Foods (Egypt)
Currency	SAR	QAR	EGP
Period-end VAT remittance	ZATCA monthly	No VAT mandate	ETA monthly + WHT remittance
FX revaluation	Yes (imported concentrates)	Yes (heavily diversified suppliers)	Yes (USD/EUR/TRY landed cost)
CFO login	cfo.saudi	cfo.qatar	cfo.egypt

Group-level consolidation runs after all three BGs close. The reporting layer translates each BG’s books into a group reporting currency and posts intercompany eliminations. A MENA F&B group can close all three countries in a single coordinated cycle.

Try the same close in another region:

• 🇶🇦 Pearl F&B (Qatar) →
• 🇪🇬 Nile Foods (Egypt) →

Next lesson

In Lesson 5 — Financial statements & KPIs, we’ll look at the financial statements AION ships out of the box and the KPIs every finance team should watch monthly.