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End Of Year Close
The end of year close process should be run at
the end of the financial year when you wish to create a new series
of data files for the following (up coming) financial year.
You need not have all your figures finalised at
the end of the financial year in order to start the new year in
either CAPITAL Office or CAPITAL GL Controller. The term "closing"
at the end of the year is not, strictly speaking, correct. You will
still be able to go back and continue work on the old year if you
wish, but note that entries posted to that year will not
automatically flow into period 1 of the following year. Any
journals posted to the old financial year would also need to be
reflected in the new financial year at least for balance sheet
items. Adjustments made to your revenue and expense accounts for
the last period of the prior year would, of course, need to be
reflected in adjustments to your retained earnings or "reserves"
account for period 1 of the following year.
CAPITAL Office users need not worry that an end
of year roll-over
must be performed at the exact end of the financial year in order
to continue working. CAPITAL Office will automatically generate
batches for the upcoming financial year if necessary, ready for
posting into the new year after the roll-over process has been
performed. CAPITAL Office also provides 60 days of "grace" into the
new year before it begins issuing warning messages that the end of
year roll-over is still to be performed. (You may also either
ignore or deactivate the warning message if you need more
time.)
See The End Of Year Roll Over Process
following which describes the various activities performed by the
end of year close or roll-over process.
Retained Earnings Account
Enter the account code that all profit and loss
items (revenue and expense accounts) should consolidate to in
period 1 of the new year. Your retained earnings account must be a
credit type.
Copy Budget Into New Year
Click to tick (the default) if you wish to copy
the old financial year's budgets into the new financial year.
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The End Of Year Roll-Over Process
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1. A consolidated retained earnings batch is
created. This batch can be posted to the final period of the old
financial year if you wish, but it is suggested that it simply be
deleted.
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2. All financial periods are re-opened (if
closed) in preparation for posting to the new year.
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3. Prior year balances are copied into the "last
year" of the new financial year.
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4. Budgets are copied if requested.
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5. Period 1 of the new financial year is updated
with the closing balances of the old financial year, but profit and
loss accounts are cleared. Accounts are cleared or carried forward
depending on the end of year setting for each code.
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6. The audit trail for period 1 of the new
financial year is updated with the newly posted opening balance
amounts.
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Special Notes: Make a back-up
and retain this back-up for future reference before running
the end of year process. If mistakes are detected in your
accounting information after the end of year process has run,
restoring the back-up will allow you to go back, correct your
errors, and redo the end of year process again.
The next general journal number to use is not set
back to 1. You may wish to perform this step manually via the
chart of accounts utility.
Trouble-Shooting
If you have not correctly
specified your opening and closing stock accounts in your chart of
accounts (if you use these accounts in your chart) then retained
earnings will not be correctly calculated.
Always print your financial statements for the
new year and check that you now have the results you expected based
on your old year's closing figures. If this is not the case (i.e.,
because the general ledger chart of accounts was not correctly
set-up) you may have to post additional journals to correct any
differences.
Once you have created the new financial year, run
a
Trial
Balance to ensure that your accouning records still
balance. Be sure to include all accounts on the report. (This is
the default behaviour.) If CAPITAL GL Controller reports that your
chart of accounts does not balance, you can run the
Accounts
Integrity Check utility to rebalance the chart of
accounts. Note that this utility will only ensure that your debit
postings equal your credit postings in your general ledger. You
must still locate the account or accounts that have caused the
error and create manual journals to correct the problem.
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