Closing a fiscal year and starting a new one

Closing a fiscal year is an important process in AccountEdge, in which a number of tasks are performed to officially close the year that's just ended and to prepare for the new year. Fortunately, AccountEdge takes care of nearly all these processes automatically.

When you've entered all the information that's required for a fiscal year, you're ready to close the year and start a new fiscal year. To learn the current fiscal year of your AccountEdge company file and other information about your company, choose Company Information from the Setup menu. This window also displays the last Month in Fiscal Year, the number of Accounting Periods per year and the Conversion Month. (The Conversion Month is the first month you started making entries in AccountEdge.)

When you start a new fiscal year, your company file will be changed in the following ways:

1. The previous fiscal year's monthly totals for all accounts are changed to "last year" categories. If "last year" amounts already existed, those amounts will be replaced.
2. All transactions are erased (purged), EXCEPT:

• Journal entries assigned to open invoices or sales or purchase orders aren't purged.

• Journal entries assigned to reimbursable expenses that haven't been reimbursed aren't purged.

• Unreconciled transactions in accounts that you reconcile aren't purged. (You'll indicate the accounts during the Start a New Fiscal Year process.)

• Contact log entries aren't purged.

• Any information dated in the new fiscal year isn't changed.

• Not yet processed undeposited funds transactions aren't purged. (You'll indicate that you wish to exclude these transactions during the Start a New Fiscal Year process.)

3. The balance of your current-year earnings account is transferred to your retained earnings account.
4. The balances of your income, cost of sales, expense, other income and other expense accounts are returned to zero.
5. If you wish, the new fiscal year can be changed so it ends in a different month than the previous fiscal year. (If you choose to make this change, check with an accountant about how to report information for a "short" fiscal year.)
6. If you wish, the new fiscal year can be changed so it contains 13 accounting periods. If your previous fiscal year used 13 periods but you didn't make any entries in the 13th period, you can also change your new fiscal year so it contains only 12 accounting periods

Idea: Make a reference copy of your company file before closing the year

Since closed transactions are purged during the year-end closing process, many MYOB software users choose to make a copy of their MYOB software company file that will be stored on their computer's hard disk so that the previous year's transactions will be easily accessible. (In effect, they are creating a historical copy of their company file.) If you choose to do this, we recommend that you rename the historical company file to reflect the fiscal year included in the file. For example, if your company file is named MYDATA, you might name the historical file MYDATA02. Once the historical company file has been renamed, you can store it in the same directory as your working company file.