What is expected behavior if an unapproved transaction with a posting period that is in a locked but not yet closed period is approved? Should it still be able to post to the locked period? Does it make a difference if just the AR/AP is closed or full GL? Is this permission dependent?

If the original period of entry is Closed, then the transaction when approved will post to the first available open period

What if it's locked but not closed?

yes, i was just reading that in more detail, then I will stay with the has to post to the first unlocked period. what are you observing?

It's posting to the locked period. However the approval is pretty customized and uses a suitelet that executes as admin, so I strongly suspect that is why it is getting around the period restrictions

is it a non posting transaction like PO or REQ or SO?

Supplier Invoice.

I assume running the suitelet as the user isn't an option for other reasons? Or perhaps create a custom role that is near enough to Admin for your needs but doesn't have the override period permission?

@Anthony Dixon I'm not sure, I am going to have to go through the customization to determine why the previous dev gave it admin permissions.

From what I understand, locking means you are prohibiting any additional posting transaction for that period(which I guess also includes not approving any pending approval transactions) so the expected behavior is it shouldn't post to that period anymore. Although you could argue that locking can also mean no new transactions should be created and any additional postings will come from any pending approvals for review. It can either be the two but I'm leaning more on the first one.