November 14, 2008 by Victoria Yudin
Every year we get a slew of phone calls about closing the year in GP. Usually these start in December and I thought I would beat the rush this year. Here are some resources and notes I have compiled over the years on the year end close. I will add to this post as I find more resources or if I get additional questions, so you can always find updated information here.
GP KnowledgeBase Articles
Microsoft publishes and updates articles that explain in great detail how the year end close should be done and all the implications and timing issues. Here is order that the modules should be closed in and the related articles:
Other Resources
General Ledger – Common Questions
When? The biggest question we get on the General Ledger close is when to do it. On one hand you don’t want to close the GL before all your adjustments are in and/or the audit is done. On the other hand, you hate not being able to see beginning balances for the GL accounts and having to use alternate FRx reports to add in last year’s numbers. Since you can post to the last fiscal year even if it is closed there is no harm in closing the fiscal year sooner than later. However, make sure that you won’t need to post to years prior to the last closed year, since you won’t be able to do it. (In other words, once you close 2008, you can still update 2008, but 2007 is done at that point.)
I said I won’t need to, but how do I post to 2005? If you absolutely positively have to post to more than one prior year, it is possible, but it will cost you. The Microsoft Professional Services team has a procedure they can run on your system that will re-open prior years. The cost will depend on the size of your data, how many companies and years you need to open and when you need to do this. We have used this service a number of times and have never had an issue, so it definitely works. To get more information on this, contact your GP Partner and show them this link.
How do I actually post to the last closed year? Here are the steps:
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Go to Tools > Setup > Company > Fiscal Periods and make sure the period you want to post to is open (unchecked).
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Go to Tools > Setup > Financial > General Ledger and make sure Allow Posting to History is checked.
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Enter and post your transaction. Read this before you look at your posting journal: the entry will look like it is posted twice. It’s showing up on the report twice because it’s updating last year’s balances and then updating this year’s beginning balances. This is ok.
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Go to Tools > Setup > Financial > General Ledger and uncheck Allow Posting to History. While it is ok to leave this checked, I recommend disallowing posting to history to avoid mistakes.
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Go to Tools > Setup > Company > Fiscal Periods and close (check) the period you opened in step 1. Again, you can leave the period open if you want.
What if one of my Balance Sheet accounts was set up as a P&L account? If one of your accounts was set up with the wrong Posting Type and you did not catch this before performing the year close, you can use KB article 864913 to correct the problem.
Other Common Questions / My 2 Cents
Payables and Receivables – to close or not to close? Most companies we work with do not close the Payables and Receivables modules anymore. Since it is virtually impossible to have a clean cut off between transactions for 2 years, it really does not add any value to perform the year end close for these modules.
Backups – do we really need them? As far as I am concerned, one of the most important parts of the year end close is making a backup before starting. I have only actually needed this backup twice, but we were sure glad we had it those two times.
What is the close procedure for other modules, like Bank Rec or SOP? Other modules do not have a ‘year end close’ process, however, prior to performing the year end close on the modules that do make sure that everything for that year is posted.
Updates:
01.08.2009: added link to Doug Pitcher’s blog post under Other Resources
01.07.2009: added link to Dynamicd GP Land blog under Other Resources
12.24.2008: added links to Mariano Gomez’s blog posts under Other Resources
11.17.2008: added links to the year end payroll updates under Other Resources
08.04.2010: added link to the GL Year End Open Service from Microsoft
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