GL - Open & Close Year

Contact us for creating G/L Archive Company before the Close G/L at Year End procedure is completed.  See G/L Archive Company for further information.

Close G/L at Year end:

• Use only at Fiscal Year End. 
• Do only after the Financial Statements for the year have been run.
• The following procedures are to be done after Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Inventory modules Year End Closing Procedures has been completed.
• See G/L Fiscal Year End Closing Procedures for steps to be taken before this process is run.
• It takes all of the individual debit & credit transactions from YTD Master (Task 20), for the income statement accounts, (number’s 500-00-xx through 999-99-xx), & deletes/closes them.  It compresses the balance of all of these accounts into one transaction & puts it into the retained earnings account. 
• The balance sheet accounts (number’s 100-00-xx through 499-99-xx) it puts just one transaction for each account as a balance brought forward.
• When you close one year it only keeps a copy one previous year’s transactions, so you can re-open one previous year.  Once you close the G/L year you can re-open one previous year.  You can’t re-open year after year after year.

How to Close General Ledger:

• General Ledger (Module 4)
  • System Management Functions (Task 32)
    • Close G/L at Year End (Sub-task 1)
      • Answer system prompts for:
        • Year End Date and the Retained Earning Account number.

        • "Clear Budget Figures Y/N"

          • Answer Yes if budgets are not used or if budgets for the new year have been modified to reflect new figures.

          • ​Answer No if budgets are used and the have not been modified for the new year.

      • Select printer to use for the Retained Earning Posting Register.

      • ​If no error occurs, then at the message " Was …. Posting OK?", answer Yes.

-----General Ledger Year End Closing is finished------

 How to Re-Open General Ledger:

Note: Use this task if the GL for last year has already been closed but adjustments need to be made to last year's data.

• General Ledger (Module 4)
  • System Management Functions (Task 32)
    • Re-open Last Year's GL (Sub-task 16)
      • Verify that the year ending date is correct (if it is wrong, change it!)
      • Processing will take a few moments, don't touch any keys.
      • Period dates will be set back one year automatically
      • After the program is complete, adjusting journal entries can be made and a new set of year end Financial Statements can be printed.

• Close the year again with Sub-task #1 (Close GL at Year End) outlined above

• A new set of Financial Statements should be printed for every period completed in the new year (i.e. if 2014 was re-opened in March 2015, new Statements should also be printed for January and February of 2015)

• No re-entry or re-posting of any data in the new year needs to be done. All new year information is retained when the old year is closed, re-opened and closed again.

For example: The fiscal year is January through December.  The normal monthly G/L postings & G/L reports/Financial Statements for December 2014 have all been finished.  These reports were all sent to the outside accountant for review.

• The G/L has been closed for 2014 as shown above in the “Close G/L at year end”. (If the “Close G/L Year end”, has not been done for 2014, before the January 2015 Financial Statements are printed, the Year to Date figures on the Financial Statements for January 2015 will include the 2014 YTD figures.)  
• At the end of each month in 2015 the normal G/L postings & printing of the G/L reports/Financial Statements for each month should be done as normal.  
• It is now March 2015, the outside accountant has returned the 2014 year end manual adjustments.  
• The 2014 year needs to be re-opened, as shown above “Re-open last year’s G/L”.
• The outside accountant’s year end adjusting manual journal entries need to be entered with a 12/31/14 date & posted.  
• The December 2014 financial statements need to be printed along with any other needed 2014 year end G/L reports.  
• The G/L 2014 needs to be closed again, as shown above “Close G/L at year end”.  
• The G/L reports & financial statements need to be reprinted for January & February 2015 to reflect any changes in accounts as of 2014 from the outside accountant’s year end manual adjustments.