Finalising is the last step in a journal day. It signs the day off as a complete record, locks it against further editing, and stamps your name and the time onto it.

Only a home manager can finalise, send back or undo a sign-off. If you are a senior or a staff member and you cannot see Finalise journal, that is why. It is not a fault and not something to be granted per day. Your part is finished when the day is submitted. See Only a manager can finalise.

The rest of this article is written for the manager doing the review.

Before you start

The day must already have been submitted. The labels on screen are:

On screen	What it means	Who moves it on
Draft	Being written.	Any staff member, via Submit for review
Awaiting Review	Submitted. Staff can still add to it.	You, via Finalise journal or Send back to staff
Signed Off	Finalised. Locked, with a padlock on the badge.	You can reverse it with Undo sign-off

If the day is still Draft, there is nothing to finalise yet. ARC replies "This journal must be published before it can be finalised." Journals waiting for you also appear on your dashboard under Waiting for your review.

Finalise the day

Open the journal day. Go to Journals in the sidebar under Daily work and open the day. The badge should read Awaiting Review.
Read the record and the Completion & review card. The card shows what is still to do. Read the sections as written, not as you remember the shift.
Add your review comments (optional). The Manager's review comments box is yours alone; the staff member cannot edit it. It is saved when you finalise.
Tick the confirmation. "I confirm this journal is an accurate and complete record of the child's care and presentation today."
Select Finalise journal. The day becomes Signed Off, and the page shows "Signed off by [your name] at [time]".

If the button is greyed out

Finalise journal stays disabled while any of these is true:

A section is empty. The confirmation box is disabled until every journal section has something in it. Ask the team to complete it. You can add to the day yourself while it awaits review.
The confirmation isn't ticked.
You have unsaved changes. The page says "Save your changes before you sign off." Choose Save changes.
The journal changed after you opened it. The page says "This journal has changed since you opened it." Choose Reload journal, read it again, then sign off. ARC refuses a sign-off made on an out-of-date view.

If ARC refuses to finalise

You may tick everything and still be stopped with "Cannot finalise journal due to compliance rule violations" followed by the rule and its reason. Your organisation's compliance rule set blocks finalising while something is outstanding for that young person on that date. Clear that item and try again.

Send it back for changes

If the day needs more, choose Send back to staff. Choose who it goes to, and write what is needed (both are required). They receive an email, a notification and a dashboard alert, and the day returns to Draft so they can edit and resubmit. The note is visible to that person and to managers; other staff see only that it was sent back. Only a day awaiting review can be sent back.

Undo a sign-off

If something was missed, choose Undo sign-off on a signed-off day and give a reason, which is required. The day goes back to Awaiting Review. You can add to it and sign it off again, or send it back. The signed-off version is kept in the version history.

What happens to the record

Each step writes a version to the history, for example "Journal finalised" and the undo with its reason. Nothing is overwritten. See Version history and the audit trail.