Lock & publish a period
Freeze a month's numbers (lock) and share each agent's finalized statement with them (publish) — auto-emailed PDFs, "publish updates" for re-locked periods, and a "what changed" diff.
When a month's numbers are final, you lock & publish it. Locking freezes the calculations and PDFs so later edits can't change what you've distributed; publishing shares each agent's finalized statement with them. These are separate states, but a one-click button does both. Admins only.
Agents only ever see periods you've published — never work-in-progress. This prevents reps from seeing half-calculated numbers (missing fees or adjustments) and forming wrong expectations.
Where
Go to Periods (labeled Monthly Reports). The table lists each period with its Status, Agents (visibility), and last change. You can also lock and publish directly from the Reports page — a Publish to agents / Shared with agents control sits next to the Locked badge, and the lock banner shows when the month was shared (or nudges you to publish). Both places do the same thing.
The states
| Status badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Open | Editable; nothing frozen. |
| Locked | Calculations and PDFs frozen in a snapshot. |
| Reopened | Was published, then unlocked again. |
| Agents badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Shared · v1 (v2+, …) | Published to agents (version increments on republish). |
| Not shared | Locked but not yet published. |
| Unshared changes | Published, but the numbers have changed since agents last saw them — use Publish updates to re-share. |
Buttons by state
| The period is… | Primary action | Also available |
|---|---|---|
| Open, not published | Lock & Publish | Lock only |
| Locked, not published | Publish | Unlock |
| Published, reopened | Re-lock & Publish | Unpublish |
| Locked, published, with newer numbers | Publish updates | Unlock |
| Locked (published, up to date) | — | Unlock |
Locking with gaps
If the period is missing data, locking warns you and asks you to confirm (a checkbox acknowledging N item(s) missing, with an optional reason). This is intentional — sometimes you finalize despite a known gap — but it's worth resolving gaps first.
Locking a large org takes a moment. Locking generates a PDF for every agent, so for big orgs it can take up to a minute. A progress toast ("Locking… this can take a minute for large orgs") confirms it's working — don't refresh. If your connection drops mid-lock, SplitRun reconciles with the server so a lock that actually finished isn't reported as failed.
What "frozen snapshot" means
After locking, the Reports page serves that period from the snapshot captured at lock time, with a banner saying so. Agents also read their numbers from this frozen snapshot — not from live data. Editing splits or rates afterward won't change what agents see, or the downloads for that period, unless you unlock, recalculate, and re-lock. This is what makes distributed statements trustworthy.
Reopening safely
If you must fix something after publishing, Unlock (you'll re-authenticate). Two things to know:
- Unlocking lets edits change that period's calculations again.
- Agents keep seeing the last published version the whole time — they read from the previous frozen snapshot and never see the reopened work-in-progress. They only move to the new numbers when you publish again.
Publishing updates after a re-lock
If you re-lock a published period without republishing (for example, you fixed an adjustment and used Lock only), the new snapshot is frozen but agents are still seeing the old numbers. SplitRun flags this: the period shows an Unshared changes indicator and a Publish updates button (on the Periods page, the period's detail page, and the Reports page, with a banner note).
Click Publish updates to share the latest snapshot. This is manual by design — re-locking freezes the numbers but never silently re-shares them, so you decide when agents see a change.
See what changed since the last publish
When a period has been published more than once, its detail page shows a Changes since previous publish card comparing the current snapshot to what agents last saw:
- Totals delta — how Total Profit, agent commission, and House moved.
- Per-agent changes — which agents were added, removed, or had their pay change, largest changes first.
On a first publish it simply notes there's nothing to compare against yet. This lets you sanity-check a correction before (and after) re-sharing it.
Emailing statements
Publishing (and republishing) automatically emails each agent their finalized statement, with their frozen PDF attached — distribution is part of finalizing, not a separate chore. A toast confirms how many agents were emailed.
- First publish emails every agent.
- Republishing / Publish updates emails only the agents whose numbers actually changed (including adjustment-only changes); unchanged agents aren't bothered. Their email is personalized — e.g. "Your total for this period changed from $X to $Y."
- Amounts in the email use your organization's reporting currency.
Agents need an email to be notified. An agent's single Email field (on their agent page) is what statements are sent to and what their portal login uses. An agent with a blank email won't receive published statements — see Manage agents and Users & roles.
Where this sits in the routine
Lock & publish is the last step of the monthly workflow — after uploading, checking matches, and verifying with the Payroll Summary.