Fiscal Calendar, Fiscal Periods and Year-End Procedure

2 minute read time.

There always seems to be at least one trailing transaction that someone wants to post after the period end closing is complete. This of course is not acceptable when financial reports have already been submitted to external entities. In order to address the need to control postings of this type, Sage 500 ERP starting with version 2013 includes options to lock down postings to sub-ledgers individually in preparation for period end closing. In “Set Up Fiscal Calendar”, you have options to lock or unlock postings to individual sub-ledgers by fiscal year and period.

 

As you can see in the screenshot above AP, AR, CM, IM, and MF module allow a ‘hard close’ in Set Up Fiscal Calendar task. This restricts the entry of future transactions to the locked period. You can change the lock status of a module at any time. Additionally, each module can override the lock/unlock status based on options setup in that module (AP Options, AR Options, etc.) A locked period is detected during posting and a fatal error displays during the posting process. The Manufacturing (MF) module does not have period closing or a current period. The current business date will be substituted for the current period. Unlock and No of future periods to unlock settings in Set Up MF Options will be used when a new fiscal year or new period(s) are created.

And something to keep in mind:

  • All accounting periods are initially set to open status.
  • The status may be changed from closed to open in order to make adjusting journals to a closed period.
  • An open period may not be closed manually, only the Period End Processing may close a period.
  • When a period is opened, the fiscal year is also set to open status.
  • The fiscal year may only be closed by performing the year end closing using the Period End Processing.
  • The Period End Processing will only close the oldest open accounting period.
  • Any open periods prior to the current period that has no activity will be automatically set to close.
  • A year end closing must be performed on any open prior fiscal years before a period end close may be performed for the current fiscal year.

Cheers,

Zenon