VISUAL NEWSLETTER – DEC 2002

LIBRA YEAR-END CLOSINGS

For many companies December is their fiscal year-end as well as the end of the calendar year. For years however accountants have tried to move fiscal year-ends to a different month than December to distribute accounting and audit duties throughout the year. Some procedures, mainly Payroll related, must still occur at or close to the end of December for personal tax reasons.

With Visual Payroll you must perform the Payroll Year-End Closing to copy the previous year’s Payroll data to an archival database. This is usually given a number to relate it to the year in question. (E.g. 202 for 2002, etc.) This must be done before processing any data for the next calendar year or data from two years will end up mixed together. The archival database is used for inquiries and printing T4’s and the like at a latter time.

Some systems much like Payroll must be closed precisely at your Fiscal Year-end before processing data for the next year. The Visual Marina Management System requires this type of closing. If you are unsure of Year-End procedures then you should call technical support before processing the next year’s data. The call may be covered by Monthly Support fees. Reconstructing database integrity most definitely is not.

The base Libra Systems include:

- General Ledger

- Accounts Payable

- Accounts Receivable

- Inventory Control

- Cost Accounting

For these systems the Closings may be run at a later time than the fiscal year-end. In Libra this is accomplished by posting data for the next fiscal year into a special set of G/L period numbers namely 21 through 32.

NEXT YEAR PROCESSING, CLOSINGS

In the current year the months of January through December are posted to periods 1 through 12 respectively. When you enter the new fiscal year you simply add 20 to the period number. If December is your year-end December would be period 12 and January would be period 21. Similarly if June is your year-end June would be period 6 and July would be period 27.

The use of next year periods permits the fiscal year to remain open for up to one full year before the Year-End Closing must be performed. This provides time for both accountants and auditors to do their work and avoids bottlenecks caused by work that is held back waiting for a year-end closing.

When the final accounting entries are booked we are ready the run the year-end closing. We usually recommend that year-end adjustments be booked to period #13. This period is always considered the final period regardless of your fiscal year-end. This way you can still get a year-end report before and after year-end adjustments which is useful.

All Libra modules should be closed the same day without any postings occurring during the

time from start to finish. Set most Run-Time Options to “All” and make sure that the Period-End Mode is set to “Year-End”.

We strongly recommend that you make backups of all databases before proceedings so that prior years of data are available should you ever need them. Also, use the Closed Period controls to prevent accidents.

General Ledger has few options and the Year-End Mode is the only one of consequence.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable optionally delete cheques and paid invoices.

Be very careful with these options to make sure that you only delete what you want to.