Technical Solutions

Closing your year involves a few important steps that must be followed in a specific order. General Ledger is closed last. The other modules can be closed in any order. The General Ledger and Payroll modules have a buffer that allows you to continue working in the 1999 fiscal year for a period of time before you must close the 1998 fiscal year. In GL, the buffer period is 6 months so that you can determine your final numbers and enter adjustments before closing. In Payroll, the period is one calendar quarter so you can print your W-2 forms which is done before the module is closed. All other modules are closed after the last entry for 1998 and before posting 1999 transactions.

To Close Your Books:

1. Post all transactions in every module related to the old year.
2. Go through every module and run all the reports in the Profile Maintenance menu.
3. MAKE A BACKUP!
4. Close each module with transactions in the old year. (see below)
5. General Ledger MUST be closed LAST. CMS gives you six months into the new year in GL before you have to close the old year.

To Close Each Module:

PAYROLL

1. Print the following reports and file in a secure area: History, Earnings, Department, Benefits/Deductions, and 941 form.
2. Print W-2 forms for all employees. First print a sample form for one employee to make sure that everything lines up correctly. After the W-2s are printed, double check the data for each employee.
3. If you are not processing on the last day of the year, change the system date to the last day of the year and the period to the last period of the year.
4. Under End of Period Processing, run year to date on:

• Employee Master - to update the benefit/deduction totals for each employee.
• Profile Files - to update the “code” information (department, benefit/deduction, and shelters).
• History Files - to update each employee’s MTD, QTD, and YTD totals. History Files also sets payroll up for the new year and rolls 5th quarter data forward.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

1. Print the following reports and file in a secure area: 1099’s (The 1099’s use the YTD Payments field in the Vendor Maintenance record. Closing the year will zero out this field and move it into the Last Year Payments field.), Status Report, AP Code Report, Master Report, Future Liability Report, and Prepaid Report.
2. Go to End of Period Processing, Process Prepaids and Futures and process by AP Code.
3. Purge Open Item File. This will delete all items from the Status Report that have a $0 amount remaining. Ensure that your system date and your present period date in the fiscal calendar match the purge date. This procedure is optional.
4. Process Vendor Accounts. Be sure you have printed your 1099’s before processing vendor accounts.
5. Purge History only if you want to free disk space.

CHECK RECONCILIATION

1. Closing Check Reconciliation is optional. You may do this only if you want to purge out all cleared items.
2. Print your Check Register Report.
3. Go to Purge Processing. This will delete all cleared items up to the Purge Date.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

1. Print the following reports and file in a secure area: AR Code Report, Transaction Code Report, Aged Analysis Report, and Statements.
2. Go to End of Period Processing:

• Compact Statement Detail (If using Open Item, deletes all items with $0 amount remaining. If using Balance Forward, combines all line items into one balance forward).
• Process Transaction Codes for (Y)ear.
• Process AR Codes and Customer Accounts. Use (Y)ear.
• Purge History only if you want to free up disk space.

ORDER ENTRY

1. Print all the reports under Profile Maintenance and any desired reports under Print Reports and file in a secure area.
2. Go to End of Period Processing:

• Non Inventory Codes. Process (Y)ear.
• Salesperson Codes. Process (Y)ear.
• Department Codes. Process (Y)ear.
• Sales Tax Codes. Process (Y)ear.
• Purge Invoice and Detail History only if you want to free up disk space.

INVENTORY

1. Print the following reports and file in a secure area: Inventory Code report, Control Report (should match your ending numbers in the GL inventory account), Movement Report, and Activity Report.
2. Closing is optional. The Periods 1 and 2 in inventory are flexible. They do not have to match the fiscal calendar periods. There are only 2 reports affected by closing. Go to End of Period Processing:

• Inventory Period Amounts, process both Period 1 and 2.
• Inventory Variance Amounts. You will use these figures to adjust your GL.

PURCHASE ORDER

1. Print Open Purchase Order Report.
2. Check Constants Maintenance to make sure you are set to SAVE HISTORY (line 23).
3. Go to Purge Processing:

• Transfer Item to History - Enter ‘1’ to rewrite.
• Purge PO History File. Do this only if you want to free disk space. All closed and transferred PO’s will be deleted up to purge date.

GENERAL LEDGER

1. Run all your General Ledger reports, especially the Audit Trail and file in a safe place for future reference.
2. If you are running your year end on a date different than the last date of the fiscal year, set the system date to the last day of the fiscal year and the period to 12 (or the last period of the year).
3. Under General Ledger Year End Processing, select Process Closing Entries.
4. Enter your Retained Earnings Account - select the account that you want your retail earnings to roll into such as owner’s equity, etc. It must be class code 5.
5. Then the software automatically processes the year end and prints out the processes as they occur:

• Your closing entries will be generated: debit revenue accounts, credit expense accounts, and credit (or debit if loss) retained earnings.
• The fiscal calendar will advance.
• Previous year data will be purged from the audit trail.
• Periods 14 - 19 will be moved to periods 1-6.
• Periods 1 - 12 will move to prior year activity.
• Prior year data is flagged as 2 years prior.

<&149> 6. After you’re done, you should run and review the following reports:

• Trail Balance for Balance Forward through Balance Forward - to confirm that your balance forwards are correct.
• Trial Balance for all periods that rolled forward. For example, run a Trail Balance for Period 1 and confirm that it matches the previous Period 14.

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Revised: 08/21/08

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