# Allocation rules and accounting periods

> Split a vendor's bills across initiatives with allocation rules, approve rule changes, and lock, reopen and reconcile a month, on any plan.
>
> Source: https://roiva-staging.com/docs/allocation-rules-and-accounting-periods
> Checked against the product on September 28, 2026

Allocation rules decide which initiatives a finance system's bills book to, and in what shares. Accounting periods let your finance team sign off a month so its costs can't change afterwards. Both come with every plan, and neither needs the Finance & Accounting module: a module sets which initiatives you can measure, not how your bills are booked. **Allocations** appears under **Finance** in the sidebar once your account has an active QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Brex or Ramp connection. Until you write a rule for a platform, vendor mappings on each connection book its bills: see [Vendors, shares and recurring costs](https://roiva-staging.com/docs/vendors-shares-and-recurring-costs).

#### What an allocation rule does

A rule covers one platform (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Brex or Ramp) and, optionally, one vendor. Every bill it matches is split among the initiatives in its splits, and each initiative's part is booked as a cost entry. The rule covers everything that platform's sync brings in, bills and card or bank transactions alike.

Rules take over from vendor mappings one platform at a time. Once your account has an active rule for a platform, that platform's bills go through its rules only, and every vendor mapping on its connections stops booking. A platform with no active rule keeps booking through its mappings. On **Integrations → Unlinked**, a connection whose platform has an active rule shows under **Booked by allocation rules**, and a finance connection with no rule yet offers **New allocation rule**.

So when you write the first rule for a platform, write one for every vendor on it you want booked. A bill that no rule matches books to no initiative, and shows under **Unmapped bills** in that month's reconciliation. If two rules match the same bill, the older rule books it.

#### Creating a rule

Open **Finance → Allocations → Rules** and choose **New Rule**:

- **Name** — a rule Roiva names after its vendor and initiatives is renamed when they change. Type your own to keep it.
- Start and end dates — the bill dates the rule covers, as whole days. Leave the start empty to start the rule the day it's approved, and the end empty to keep it open.
- **Source filter** — the **Platform**, and the **Vendor name match**: **Exact name** ignores case, punctuation and endings like Inc or LLC, and **Contains** matches any vendor name with it in. Leave the vendor empty to match every vendor on the platform.
- **Split method** — **Fixed shares** gives each initiative its percentage of every bill. **In proportion to each initiative's costs** shares each bill by what each initiative spent on a **Driver cost type** over the **Lookback (days)** before the bill.
- **Splits** — one row per initiative, with its **Share**, cost type and category. **Add initiative** adds a row. Fixed shares can add up to less than 100%: what they leave is unassigned, booked to no initiative, and stays on the bill's account in your books.

**Create rule** saves it as a draft, which books nothing. Anyone in the account can view and draft rules.

#### Approving and changing rules

Click a rule in the list to open it in a panel beside the list, with **Approve**, **Edit** and **Archive**. Approving or archiving a rule takes an Owner, an Admin, or a finance reviewer.

- **Approving a new rule** makes it active from its start date. With no start date, it starts the day it's approved, so it books no earlier bills. A start date in the past reaches back: the next sync books the bills dated from it that nothing has booked yet.
- **Editing an active rule** saves your change as a draft revision (**Save as draft revision**), and the rule keeps booking as it was. Once the revision is approved, it books bills dated from that day on, and the old version keeps the bills dated before. A rule can only have one revision waiting at a time.
- **Archiving** stops the rule booking new bills. Bills it already booked stay booked. When a platform has no active rule left, its vendor mappings book again.

Bills already booked never move on their own when a rule changes. To re-split a vendor's past bills at new shares, use **Set share** on the initiative's **Costs → Vendors** tab and date the change back.

#### Rules made for you

When an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer accepts vendors under **Suggested from your books** on an initiative's Overview, Roiva creates a rule for each vendor, routing its bills dated from that day to the initiative. The rule is active straight away, with no separate approval. Anyone else who accepts adds the past bills only. A rule made this way says so under **Origin** on its page. When the vendor already has a rule, the initiative joins it instead.

On an initiative's **Costs → Vendors** tab, an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer can also change a rule's share or matching for that initiative, or take the initiative off it. Those changes take effect straight away, from bills dated that day.

#### Accounting periods

**Finance → Allocations → Accounting Periods** lists each month an allocation rule has booked bills in, with its status: Open, In review, Locked or Reopened. Open a month to see its allocations: each bill, the rule that split it and each initiative's share.

Preparing, locking and reopening take an Owner, an Admin, or a finance reviewer:

- **Prepare for lock** appears on an Open or Reopened month once journal posting is set up (see GL Mapping below). It builds a proposed journal entry for each bill, which reclasses the bill's amount to each initiative in your books, and moves the month to In review.
- **Lock and post to** your books, on a month in review, posts those journal entries and locks the month. The button names the books the entries post to: QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite. **Lock period** locks a month without posting anything. If a post fails, the month isn't locked and stays in review, and the journal entry shows why it failed. Entries that posted before it stay posted, because your books kept them. Fix the problem and lock again: it posts the rest, starting with the one that failed.
- **Reopen** needs a **Reason to reopen**. It posts a reversing entry for each journal the last lock posted, unlocks the month and records the reason. If a reversal fails, the month stays locked. Reopen again to post the reversals that are left. To post corrected journals, prepare the month and lock it again.

Card charges from Brex or Ramp get no journal entry, because Roiva doesn't know which account in your books holds them. They show a **No journal** badge. Tag them to their initiatives in your books.

#### What locking prevents

Locking freezes every cost entry in your account dated in that month, whether a rule booked it or someone recorded it by hand:

- Nobody can change or delete those cost entries until the month is reopened.
- A recurring cost skips the locked month and says so.
- Re-splitting a vendor's past bills leaves that month's bills as booked.

#### Reconciliation and PBC packets

**Reconciliation** on a month's page ties it out, one currency at a time: the source bills total, what's unassigned, what's allocated, and posted journal entries. It lists **Variances**, allocations whose lines don't add up to what their rule assigned, and **Unmapped bills**.

**Generate PBC packet** on the reconciliation page builds a ZIP for your auditors, with a cover sheet and CSVs of the month's summary, rules, allocations, source bills, journal entries and audit log. You get a notification when it's ready, and it's under **Recent PBC packets** on the month's page to **Download**. Generating one takes an Owner, Admin or finance reviewer.

#### Finance settings

An Owner or Admin finds these in **Organization Settings**, below its other pages, or by typing their name into **Search…** at the top of the page:

- **Finance Reviewers** — lets people approve allocation rules, lock and reopen periods, and generate PBC packets without being an Admin. Owners and Admins can always do these, and the page lists them by role. Choose someone and **Add reviewer**.
- **GL Mapping** — how journal entries post to Xero, NetSuite or QuickBooks: the dimension that tags each initiative (a Xero tracking category, or a NetSuite department, class or location), a default account code, and each initiative's dimension value. Turn on **Enable posting to the GL** and **Save GL mapping**. A month's page links here with **Set up the GL mapping** until it's done.
- **Auditor Links** — a time-limited, read-only link for your external auditor, who needs no Roiva account. They see every locked month and can download PBC packets, and each visit is logged. Set **Expires in (days)** (90 by default) and **Generate**, then copy the link: it's shown only once. **Revoke** cuts it off.

#### Next

- [Vendors, shares and recurring costs](https://roiva-staging.com/docs/vendors-shares-and-recurring-costs) — vendor mappings, shares and suggestions on one initiative
- [Linking connections to initiatives](https://roiva-staging.com/docs/linking-connections-to-initiatives) — connecting a finance system to initiatives in the first place