* GL - Financial Periods

AA-02151


Overview of Financial Periods

A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is a period used for calculating annual ("yearly") financial statements in businesses and other organizations. OneSource, in order to create any type of transaction that affects the General Ledger (such as AR Invoices, AP Bills, Checks, Deposits, etc) -- that transaction must be in an open (non closed) Financial Period.  You need to use the Financial Periods screen to setup and manage a set of Financial Periods for each fiscal year.  

Why Financial Periods Are Important

At a minimum you will need to balance your books at least once a year for tax purposes.  You may also want or need to balance your books so you can provide financial statements to your company stakeholders or for certain lending institutions (that have loaned your company money).  Trying to balance your financial books a full year at a time can many times prove to be a very difficult, time consuming task.  Typically, a better practice is to perform a series of monthly accounting / balancing procedures--and then to 'close' the period you have just balanced--which will lock your changes into place, so your financial books will stay in balance month by month.  Following this practice will make the task of balancing your financial books for a full year a much easier task.   

How to open the Financial Periods screen

  • Click Accounting > Financial Periods.

How to create a new set of Financial Periods

  • Click Accounting > Financial Periods
  • Scroll the left or right buttons (in the Select Fiscal Year section in the upper right hand corner) and stop on the year you want to set up.
  • Click the New Common Periods button
    • Select 12 Months (or Quarterly if you prefer)
    • Select a Starting Month
    • Click OK, and then click OK again.
  • Click Close.

How to close a financial period

  • Open the Financial Periods screen.
  • If necessary scroll to the year that have the period you want to close, such as 2012.
  • Click on the period you want to close and then click the Close Period... button.
  • NOTE: Suppose you are trying to close March, 2012.  All periods before March, 2012 must also be closed as well. 

How to close the last financial period in your fiscal year

  • (Perform this function when all other others are out of OneSource)
  • Open the Financial Periods screen.
  • After you have closed all previous periods in the year (and in previous years as well) click on the last period of the Fiscal Year.
  • Click the Close Period... button.
  • When prompted, select the GL Acount you want to 'roll' the total profit (or loss) into using the Equity Account drop down box and then click OK.  
    • NOTE: You will typically choose an Equity account of some type.  You may want to talk to your CPA if you are uncertain.
  • Click Yes when prompted.
  • Click OK when prompted to allow OneSource to make a backup of your Company Data File.
    • This will create a backup of your company data file named something like: YourCompanyDataFile_2012_yearEndBackup+DO_NOT_DELETE.mdb  (assuming you were close 2012) and it will store the file in the OneSource\Data\OneSourceCompanyDataFileBackups folder.