How do I process a year end?

Summary

The following article explains how to process a financial year end.

More Information

Things to Consider Before Closing the Year

If you use an external accountant or accountancy firm to prepare your accounts for submission to HMRC, they will give you a list of adjustment journals to be done. In most instances, these adjustments will only be available after the year has been closed As you can't post back into a year that has been closed these should be posted as prior year adjustments in the new financial year.

Checks to make

View the What should I consider at month end? article as it contains checks you are advised to make at the end of every financial period.

Profit to Date

Having completed all your month end processes for the financial year you may now wish to journal your closing profit from the previous year, i.e. the value in Profit to Date 'Z995', to Retained Profit & Reserves '90101'. If you choose not to post this journal, centre 'Z995' will continue to be added to year on year.

Backup your system

You are strongly advised to take a full backup of your Platinum system once you have completed all month end processes for the financial year and before you close the year. Set the backup aside e.g. copy it onto a USB stick, label it with the year you are closing and set it aside for seven years.

See Setting up the Platinum backup program or Contact your Platinum dealer or our support team on 0116 230 1500 or by using our website support contact page for advice.

Closing the year

Carry out all the necessary processes outlined in the month end article for the final month of your financial year.

• Make sure you are happy with the final printouts before proceeding with the reports listed below:

Debtors, Creditors & Trial Balance

Make sure you have a copy of the Aged Debtors & Aged Creditors and Trial Balance as at the year end.

These are the reports you produce whilst running the month end guide for the last month of the financial year but it is worth re-running them to ensure you have a copy of each. Follow this article for how to produce these reports.

Profit & Loss Report

• Go to " Nominal Ledger Profit & Loss Change Report Range".
• In the "Start Date:" and "End Date:" fields, enter the date range for your entire financial year.
• Press <Esc>.
• Select [Run Profit & Loss Report].
• Once the above has printed press <Alt+P> and choose your PDF printer. Alternatively use your default printer but be aware the next report will produce a large number of pages.

If you do not have the option to print to PDF please see How do I Setup Printing to PDF in Platinum? or Contact your Platinum dealer or our support team on 0116 230 1500 or by using our website support contact page for advice.

• Select [Audit Trail & Clear Down].
• Once the report has completed click [Accept].

The system will now post a journal against each P&L Nominal Code to clear the balance and post the opposite entry to Profit to Date 'Z995'.

Balance Sheet

Go to " Nominal Ledger Balance Sheet"

• Select [Balance Sheet]
• Once the above has printed press <Alt+P> and choose your PDF printer. Alternatively use your default printer but be aware the next report will produce a large number of pages.

If you do not have the option to print to PDF please see How do I Setup Printing to PDF in Platinum? or Contact your Platinum dealer or our support team on 0116 230 1500 or by using our website support contact page for advice.

• Select [Audit Trail & Clear Down].
• Once the report has completed click [Accept].

Moving on to the new Financial Year

Go to " Reports & Settings End of Year".

You will see the message : "Current Financial Year is 01/<start month>/<year> to 31/<last month>/<year>. Continue (Y/N)".

If it informs you that Your Vat will be cleared down please do not concern yourself as this is an internal process and in no way affects your VAT reporting or ability to submit VAT returns.

• Press "Yes" to close off the year.

Unprocessed Data Found

If you are presented with a message that says "Unprocessed data found in the Sales, Purchase or Nominal Ledger" please see the article entitled Clearing any unprocessed transactions at a year end.

Follow the article carefully to process the data then repeat the steps to process the year end from the top of this article.

See also

• Clearing any unprocessed transactions at a year end
• Setting up the Platinum backup program
• How do I send a printout to a file?
• How to process a month end
• What should I consider at month end?

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