Extending the Balance Date on a General Ledger

1. From within the clients general ledger go to the General Ledger menu and choose Backup Ledger Data. The Backup up Ledger's Data files window opens.

2. Choose location to save to, then click OK. The message Backup Completed successfully appears.

3. Click OK.

4. From within the client general ledger, click the General Ledger menu and choose Options. The Ledger Configuration window opens.

5. Select Record Period Balances and Record Future Periods, then click Apply. The ledger is reconfigured.

6. Click OK. The Ledger Configuration window closes.

In this example, we are changing the balance date from 31st March 2018 to 30th June 2018 extending the ledger to 15 months.

1. Enter all transactional data for the financial year including the extended period. For example, April 2017 to June 2018 through Transaction Entry ensuring you select the correct period to enter the data into.

2. Enter all accrual journals and stock / livestock journals in the final period of the extension. For example, "6 - June 2018"

3. In the Fixed Assets module, post depreciation to the General Ledger for the whole period. In our example, this would be for the 15 months ending 30 June 2018 i.e. Start month is "4 - April 2017", Finish month is "6 - June 2018".

   If you have added any assets during the extended period (April, May or June 2018):

   Open the Fixed Asset Ledger and select the asset that has been added during the future period.

1. Print the Financial Reports for the whole period including the extended months. In Step 4 - Select Accounting Periods pick the extension's balance month in the End Date field. In our example, this would be for the 15 months ending 30 June 2018, i.e. Start month is 4 - April 2017, Finish month is 6 - June 2018.

2. Confirm the reports show as expected and finalise the ledger. The Report titles should read For the XX Months ended DD Month Year or As at DD Month Year. In our example, it would be for the 15 months ending 30 June 2018 or As at 30th June 2018.

3. Take another backup of the ledger (see Task 1, step 1).

1. When the ledger year end is changed all transactions not within the 12 current year periods of the ledger will be ignored. To correct for this you need to journal all account balances for the first periods of the ledger. To identify what periods need to be adjusted for it will be one year prior to the new (extended) balance date.

2. Print a Trial Balance including Opening Balances. On Step 3 of the Trial Balance Report Wizard, deselect Year To Date, Selected Period Last Year, and Year To Date Last Year, so that only a double-column Selected Period Trial Balance is printed.

   If you are using Quantities, then tick Quantity as well.

   In our example, new year end is 30th June 2018 therefore we should select June 2017, therefore we need to print out a Trial Balance (including Opening Balances) for the first 3 months of the 15 month period i.e. Start month is 99 - Opening Balance, Finish month is 6 - June 2017.

3. Post a journal through Transaction Entry (excluding GST), posting the balances on the Trial Balance into the next period. In our example, it is entered into the 4th period, 7 - July 2017, with a data entry date of 01/07/2017.

1. Select the General Ledger menu > Options and change the Year End Date to the new year-end date. In our example, the year end date would be changed to 30/06/2018.

2. Select the General Ledger menu > End of Year Rollover. The ledger will roll and the year end date will change to the new year. In our example, the year end date would roll to 30/06/2019. 

1. Check the Opening Balances and Comparatives to make sure they are correct.

2. Check the Opening Book Values on your printed Fixed Assets Schedule. If they do not reconcile with the closing book values for last year, go to the Other tab and adjust the accumulated depreciation figure for each asset. This will alter the opening book value on the assets.