Oooh I absolutely agree about the annoying habit of using the last date!  I have made mistake there too but that can be easily picked up when doing the bank recs as they will be out.  

I will look at that suggestion ref "close the books" suggestion, thanks for that.  It was our Auditor who noticed that I had put in a 2022 date (outside of our financial period) instead of 2023 when a journal was posted!  Little embarrassing but she understood.