# Multi-company support and fiscal period lifecycle

> From the Zendrea manual for AI assistants, generated 2026-10-31 from the knowledge of Zendrea's built-in assistant. All topics: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms.txt; all of them in one file: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms-full.txt. Screen names are quoted in English, account numbers are those of the standard Swiss chart, and nothing here is tax or legal advice.

A single user account can manage **multiple companies**. Each company has its own completely separate dataset: chart of accounts, fiscal periods, invoices, expenses, salaries, employees, clients, creditors, opening balances, bank data, etc. Nothing crosses company boundaries.

**The header has two dropdowns** that control the workspace:
1. **Company selector** — switches the active company. Includes "Add new company" to create one, and "Manage companies" to rename, reorder, or delete existing ones (the last remaining company can't be deleted).
2. **Fiscal period selector** — switches the active period within the current company. Includes "Add fiscal period" to create a new one, and "Manage fiscal periods" to toggle each period between open and closed.

**Creating a company:** the create-company dialog asks only for a display name. The company's address, business ID, VAT ID, legal form, logo, etc. are filled in afterwards under Settings → Company (with optional commercial-register lookup to auto-populate company data, where available for the company's country).

**Creating a fiscal period:** the dialog presents a year grid; pick a year to create a calendar-year fiscal period (Jan 1 – Dec 31). Selectable years exclude those already covered. On creation, the prior period's closing carries forward into the new period's openings automatically — no manual closing entry is required (see Year-end P&L closing) — and the new period silently inherits the prior period's VAT status.

**Closed fiscal periods are read-only.** When the active fiscal period is closed:
- New entries cannot be created (all booking-form "save" buttons are disabled).
- Existing entries cannot be edited, rebooked, or deleted.
- Reports and PDFs still work; this is an audit lock, not a data lock.
- To book something, the user switches to an open period.

**Closing a fiscal period:** done from Manage Fiscal Periods via the open/closed toggle per row. Closing is reversible (toggle back to open) — useful for end-of-year adjustments that come in late.

**Common questions:**
- "Can I track two companies?" → Yes, use the company switcher in the header → Add new company.
- "How do I switch to my other company?" → Header company dropdown.
- "Why is the save button greyed out?" → Most likely the fiscal period is closed. Switch to an open period.
- "How do I close my fiscal year?" → Header fiscal-period dropdown → Manage fiscal periods → toggle the period closed. Doesn't book a closing entry (this app uses single-step carry-forward, see Year-end P&L closing).
- "Can I delete a company?" → Yes via Manage companies, except the last remaining one — and only an owner may (see the members-roles topic).
- "How do I let someone else into this company?" → Settings → Members, owner invites by email; the topic [members-roles](https://www.zendrea.ch/docs/members-roles.md) for what each role may do.