• Financial Years & Periods
• Closing Financial Periods
• Closing the Financial Year
• Post Year-End Adjustments
• Reporting Considerations
• Locking Ledgers

Accessing Financial Years & Periods

To configure financial years and periods:

1. Navigate to Settings → Firm Settings from the main navigation menu.
2. Select Financial Years and Periods.

Only users with Unrestricted Setting access can view and modify these settings.

From this area, you can:

• Set a Financial Period Date
• Close a Financial Period
• Manage Financial Year Closing and Post-Year-End Adjustments

Financial Periods

Financial periods allow you to lock financial figures for reporting purposes while still permitting postings to be backdated.

Key points:

• Optional feature: Use of financial periods is optional.
• The system stores both the transaction date and financial period date for each transaction. Reports are generated based on the financial period date.

Closing a Period:

• Enter the first day following the period in the period date field.
  • Example: To close March 2024, enter 01.04.2024.
• Postings dated prior to this date will be allocated the period date of 01.04.2024, ensuring reports as at March 2024 do not include subsequent postings.

Reopening a Period:

• Change the period date to reopen a financial period if required.

If the current financial period date is earlier than the year-end date, closing the financial year will automatically update the period date to the first day of the new financial year. Periods within a closed year cannot be reopened. Use Post-Year-End Adjustments for any required corrections.

Pre-Year-End Checklist

Before running the financial year close, ensure the following tasks are completed:

1. Review Pre-Adjusted Trial Balance
   • Verify that all ledger balances are accurate and complete.
2. Review Transactions
   • Check all recent postings and investigate any discrepancies.
3. Record Journal Entries
   • Include prepayments, accruals, adjustments, and corrections.
   • Review Aged WIP, Aged Disbursements, Debtors, and Creditors.
   • Review any unpresented/stale/out of date cheques.
   • Review any unpresented deposits.
4. Perform Final Bank Reconciliation
   • Reconcile all bank accounts to confirm cash balances.
5. Record Closing Year Entries and Locking Journals
   • Enter final adjustments for period-end or year-end reporting.
   • Prepare locking journals if ledger locks are used.
6. Bulk Trust Statement Distribution
   • Generate and distribute trust account statements to clients or relevant parties.

Completing these steps before closing the year ensures all balances, reports, and reconciliations are accurate and reduces post-year-end corrections.

Closing the Financial Year

Running the financial year-end close performs an automated clear-down of Profit & Loss accounts and prepares a new financial year.

Steps to Run Year-End Close

1. Navigate to Settings → Firm Settings → Financial Years and Periods.
2. Select the current financial year you want to close.
3. Confirm that all Pre-Year-End Checklist tasks are complete.
4. Click Close Financial Year.
5. The system will automatically:
   • Clear each Profit & Loss account to zero.
   • Move the total balance to the Retained Earnings balance sheet account.
   • Automatically open a new financial year starting the day after the previous year-end.
   • Default to a 12-month financial year (modifiable before closure).
6. Note: The start date of new financial years is fixed after creation. Only the very first financial year start date can be edited before closure.

Adjust the year-end date if a shorter or longer financial year is required.

Current Year Earnings Account

• This account reflects a virtual calculation of the current year’s earnings.
• When the year is closed and the automated year-end journal is posted, this account resets to zero.

Post Year-End Adjustments

If corrections are needed after a financial year is closed:

1. Reopen the closed financial year.
2. Use the Record Posting option in Financial Years and Periodsto make adjustments.
   • This opens a privileged journal transaction screen, allowing postings to backdate to closed periods.
3. After adjustments, reclosing the year triggers an automated clear-down on updated P&L accounts.

Multiple financial years:

• Reopen in reverse chronological order (latest first).
• Reclose in chronological order (earliest first).

Always close years in sequence to maintain ledger integrity.

Reporting 

• Profit & Loss Reports: Automated clear-down transactions are omitted by default to provide accurate YTD reporting. Remove the filter to include them.
• Balance Sheet Reports: Clear-down entries to Retained Earnings are included to show an accurate position.
• General Ledger: Automated clear-down transactions have a unique posting event type, allowing filtering via the Posting Events filter.

Locking Ledgers

Ledger locking is independent of financial period or year-end closing. Locking prevents transactions from being recorded on locked dates:

Steps to lock a ledger:

1. Navigate to General Ledger → select the relevant Office Ledger.
2. From the Update Ledger menu, select Lock Ledger.
3. Choose the lock dateusing the calendar icon.
   • No transactions can be recorded on or prior to this date.
4. Click Save.
   • The locked date will appear in the Locked Date column on the General Ledger screen.

Ledger locking is optional. Use ledger locking for added control when finalising financial reporting.

Best Practices

• Configure Financial Periods and Years before posting year-end entries.
• Complete all pre-year-end tasks to reduce post-closing corrections.
• Reopen financial years only when necessary and process adjustments carefully.
• Ensure reporting filters are set correctly to avoid including automated clear-down journals unintentionally.
• Align ledger locking with financial year closing for consistent reporting.