If you choose to post a journal outside of the period to which it relates - for example if a period is locked - this will create an adjustment line in the schedule so that we can still reconcile the schedule back to Xero.
For example - lets say you have wrapped up month end for June and locked the period, but then you notice something isn't quite right in the schedule and you need to adjust a release. You would see the line item you have adjusted turn gold to notify you something has changed:
and then you would need to update the journal. When you go to do this, you'll see a tooltip explaining that the period is locked and so you'll need to post the update in a different period:
Changing the date to 1st July (which is outside of the locked period) allows you to update the journal, creating a second time stamp and deep link back to Xero:
this also creates an adjustment line at the bottom of the schedule, so you can still reconcile back to Xero and show your variance as nil:
There is a handy tool tip which appears when you hover over the adjustment amount, that explains which transactions are being counted in the balance:
The adjustment balance will continue to roll forward to the month in which the journal was posted.