To close a fiscal year

If you haven’t already read the Year-end Procedures Overview, see Preparing to close your fiscal year or payroll year for more information.

Please note that this task requires single-user access. See Single-user file locking for more information.

  1. Print all the reports that you wish to keep that show the previous year’s transaction activity. You might consider printing a copy of each journal, because they show all transaction activity for a specified period.
  2. Make at least one backup of your data file. Clearly mark this backup and put it in storage as part of your permanent records.
Warning: Make a backup before closing the fiscal year!It’s very important that you make a backup before continuing. After you start a new fiscal year, the only way to view the detail of transactions that were purged from the data file during the start a new year process is to restore a backup of the data file.

To ensure that the backup you make is a reliable backup, we recommend, that as a test, you restore the backup before you start the new fiscal year in your data file.

We also recommend that you make multiple backups of your data file - that is, more than one copy of your data file at different locations. The purpose of multiple backups is simple: backups can fail as easily as computers. If the backed-up file is damaged, you're in just as much trouble as you would be without any backup at all.
  1. Choose Start a New Year from the File menu, and then choose Start a New Fiscal Year from the sub-menu that appears.
  2. Follow the instructions that appear on your computer screen.
Warning: Fiscal years probably shouldn’t be changed Once you’ve established your fiscal year, you are legally limited in your ability to make changes to it. For example, if your fiscal year begins on February 1st, you may not be able to move it to March 1st. Consult your accountant or an MYOB Certified Consultant before considering any such change. (To locate an MYOB Certified Consultant in your area, see www.myob.com/us.)

In Accounting Plus, and according to the standard used by most accountants, fiscal years take the name of the calendar year in which they end. For example, if your fiscal year is from October 1st, 2000, to September 30th, 2001, that year is referred to as “fiscal year 2001.”
  1. After you start a new fiscal year, we recommend that you optimize and verify your data file. Optimizing your data file reduces your data file's size and makes your data file more efficient. The Verify Data File utility checks your data file for errors and ensures that your data file is in “healthy” working condition.
Note: Optimizing and verifying may take awhile
The amount of time needed to optimize and verify a data file for use with MYOB Accounting Plus depends upon the size of the file and the capabilities of the workstation you’re using. If you have a very large data file and a slower computer with little memory, be prepared for optimization and verification to take some time.

Keyword: Start a new year

To close a fiscal year