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GENERAL LEDGER 6.5 YEAR
END Often
it is not possible to complete the year-end before you are required to
produce entries in the next year. Version 6 introduced the concept of
"soft" month ends and the ability to print AR & AP sub ledger
trial balances at a previous date; therefore it is
quite simple to deal with this situation. Soft month ends result from the
ability of the GL to retrieve the transactions from the sub ledgers into
different fiscal periods based on the date of the transaction. If the
transaction date falls outside of the fiscal year as shown on the GL company
profile fiscal period calendar, that transaction is assigned to fiscal period
99 which means that it will not be posted in the GL but will be placed in an
"error" batch. There
are several decisions that have to be made before
the best method of handling the year-end can be made. First,
do you use the statistical information in the AR, AP? If you do not, there is
no difficulty in entering some of this year's transactions before closing
last year. It is always possible to go back and edit the statistics if that
is desired. Option 1 may be OK. Second,
how long will it be before you have all the year end
entries? If you expect to be closed off before the end of the first fiscal period,
you may not see a necessity to run 2 GL's. If you post to the GL on a daily basis, you may still wish to run a current year
and a last year GL concurrently. Third,
do you wish to have all of last year's entries posted to last year's GL so
that it is fully complete and you can run a complete
GL listing of all accounts? Any last year entries that are only posted to
previous year in the current GL obviously won't show
on last year's GL listing ‑ last year's totals in the current GL will
be changed as will the opening balances for this year. This means that you
will have to take a backup of two GL's to obtain a complete record of last
year's GL. Also many clients want to have a complete
last year's GL available because their accountants can use this GL to perform
their work. This requires running a present year GL and a last year GL
concurrently. Below
is a list of options. Assume a December fiscal year end, that the data is in
C:\ASP\DATA and that in the company profile (6.1) first screen, the option
“force listing of batches” has been set to “No”. Please note that
we have used the abbreviations of (LY) for last year and (CY)
for current year. OPTION
1 Single
GL, statistical information not used, IC & OE closed for (LY) or not used. 1.1 In
AP and AR continue as usual entering Dec and Jan transactions in the same
batch if desired. DO NOT do Dec period end until all Dec transactions have
been recorded. Once you have run Dec period end, you may not be able to print
a report to reconcile the sub ledger to the GL. 1.2 In
the GL do the year end function to close the GL whenever desired. (a) If
you retrieve the above batches prior to closing the GL, the Dec transactions
will show fiscal 12 and the Jan transactions fiscal 99. Post the batches to
the current year and all fiscal 99 entries will appear in an error batch.
Print this error batch to ensure that it contains only January transactions,
archive (3.1.4.Archive) and (3.1) delete it. It will
be retrieved (3.1.4. Create Recurring Batch) and posted to fiscal I in the
current year. (b) If
you retrieve the above batches after closing the GL, the December
transactions will show fiscal 99 and January transactions will show fiscal 1.
Post the batches to the current year and all fiscal 99 entries will appear in
an error batch. Edit the error batch, change fiscal to 12, and post it to
previous year (3.3.2). OPTION
2 To
run (LY) and (CY) GL's concurrently, statistics not used, IC & OE closed
for (LY) or not used. 2.1 When
ready to close (LY), go to start list, hit 'insert', type 'z. (LY) GL' and
set path to '\ASP\DATA\(LY)', use the same extension
as current GL. (Answer yes to create subdirectory.) 2.2 At
DOS make a copy of the existing GL by typing: xcopy
C:\ASP\DATA\GL*.XXX C:\ASP\DATA\(LY)\*.* where xxx
is the extension of your data files. It is also a good idea
to use PKZIP to create a backup of your GL at this time in C:\ASP\DATA\GL\(LY\ZIP. 2.3 Start
ACCPAC and go into the (LY) GL. Go to housekeeping, edit company profile and add (LY) ‘Year End’ to the company name. This
will ensure that you know which GL you are in and also
all reports printed from this GL will be properly identified. 2.4 Go
into the current GL and perform the year end close. This is now the (CY) GL
and all sub ledgers are attached to it. All entries MUST be posted in this GL
‑ (LY) entries are posted to the previous year and (CY) entries posted
to the current year. (a) When
you retrieve batches from AP and AR, the Dec transactions will show fiscal 99
and Jan transactions will show fiscal 1. Post the batches to the current year
and all fiscal 99 entries will appear in an error batch. Print this error
batch to ensure it contains only (LY) entries, change the fiscal period to
12, archive it, and post to previous year. (b) The
(LY) entries must be archived before being posted to previous year fiscal 12
in the (CY) GL otherwise they cannot be retrieved into the (LY) GL and you
must then manually re‑enter them. In the (LY) GL they are posted to the
current year fiscal 12. 2.5 The
(LY) GL is located in a subdirectory below the
current GL so that network rights should not be a problem. Also
your backup command can usually be set to back up all subdirectories below
the current GL. Normally you would not have two data bases on your network or
stand alone computer with the same extension,
however the GL can only retrieve archived batches with the same extension.
When the (LY) GL is fully complete, change the extension to YXX ‑ make
sure the start list is also changed. (Where Y = Y and XX = the last two
digits of the year) 2.6 Be
sure this (LY) GL is backed up regularly during the period that you are
making entries to it and that data integrity checks are done regularly. 2.7 Always
check to see that both GL's are in balance with each other. If you have
comparative financial statements simply run these for fiscal 12 in both GL's.
The (LY) current figures should be identical to the (CY) comparatives. If you
don't run comparative statements and don't wish to
modify the specifications, a quick check can be made as
follows. Print a trial balance in the (LY) GL, add the total of
the income accounts (on the last page of trial balance) to the retained
earnings and this figure should agree to (CY) opening retained
earnings. These figures are on the bottom of the add/modify GL
accounts screen (1.1). OPTION
3 Similar to Option 2 except you want the (CY) GL to contain
only (CY) entries with no (LY) entries posted to prior year. 3.1 Follow
the same procedure as in option 2 above but in item 2.4 above be sure to
archive ALL Fiscal 99 error batches. Do this after verifying the
error batches only contain batch entries for posting in the next year. Use
the convention that batches to be posted to (LY) are archived in the LXXXX
range and batches to be posted to (CY) are in the CXXXX
range. (Where L = (LY) and C = (CY) and XXXX = the original batch
number. This makes it much easier when it comes to retrieving the batches. 3.2 After
the (LY) GL has all entries in it, copy it to C:\ASP\DATA\LY and change the
extension to YXX (where Y = Y and XX = last two digits of LY) in
(LY)). You can then close it to become (CY) and then create recurring
batches from the archived entries in the Cxxxx
range. OTHER
COMMENTS 4.1 Another
option can be used with the AR & AP by entering the next year's entries
in batches AFTER CLOSING THE YEAR in these modules. These entries are then posted
after the GL has been closed and are therefore retrieved into next year's GL. |
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