General Ledger Year-End Procedures
This is a two-step process and must be completed in the following order;
First, Close the Last Month of your Fiscal Year.
Second, Close the Year.
Flowchart - General Ledger / End of Year
A. Final Month-End Close
The following reports are available to print for your records, all are optional; however, financial statements cannot be run for a closed period.
a. M-14.1.13 - Journal Entry Proof List, With Update
b. M-14.1.14 - Reverse Entries Proof List, With Update
c. M-14.1.16 - Recurring Entries Update
d. M-14.2.4 - Preliminary Trial Balance & Update
e. M-14.2.1A - Detail General Ledger Activity Listing
f. M-14.2.2 - Monthly Journal Entry Report
g. M-14.2.4 - Trial Balance
h. M-14.3.8 - Financial Reports, Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss
If any Journal Entries are made after running menu 14.3.8 –
Re-run 14.1.13 Journal Entry Proof List or 14.1.14 Reverse Entries Proof List, also re-run 14.2.4 Preliminary Trial Balance and Update and menu 14.3.8 Financial Reports.
Closing General Ledger General Ledger entries cannot be made between the month and year-end close.
Retained Earnings
For uniformity you will need to roll your net income every year during the same period. Some stores will choose to do this at the end of the year, while others will make this adjustment at the first part of the new year. Regardless of when this is done, a journal entry needs to be created that rolls Net Income into Retained Earnings.
Journal Entry Sample:
Net Income ####.##
Retained Earnings #####.##
Closing Month-End
a. M-14.2.14 - Tape Backup
b. M-14.2.7 - General Ledger Month-End Update
B. Year-End Close
1. Complete each of the following steps;
a. M-14.4.2 - Backup Tape. Clean tape heads and use a new tape for this process. This tape should be archived and not used in your regular tape rotation.
b. M-14.4.1 - Preliminary Year-End C/A Close and Update
c. M-14.4.3 - At the prompt "Enter Last Fiscal Year and Month to be on Report" Enter the year and month of your closing fiscal year. For Example: if your fiscal year ends on December 31, 2008 enter 200812.
On the Annual General Ledger Detail Report - Use the first day of the your new fiscal year as the date in the heading of the opening balance line, again, if your fiscal year ends on
December 31, 2008, enter 01/01/09.
d. M-14.4.5 - Final C/A Update and Close - Answer Y***, this report updates opening balances.
e. M-14.4.6 - GL History File Purge (Optional. You may elect to retain history for a few years if you have enough room on your hard disk.)
f. M- 14.4.7 - Update Header Record to History File for New Year. Use the first day of the new fiscal year to update headings. If your fiscal year ends on December 31, 2008, enter 01/01/09.
