Inventory month-end close best practices

Does anyone know of any white papers or documents that cover best practices for month-end close process for inventory?  Is it a best practice to have two inventory periods open at the beginning of the month, and perform the month-end close for the previous period on the 1st of the new month? 

Once we close inventory on the last day of the month (the 31st) and open the next month (starting the 1st), it is not possible to enter material transactions after the close on the 31st which are future-dated, --- future-dated transactions don't appear to be allowed in Oracle Inventory.  Thus we have to wait until the 1st of the new month.