Closing the year-end before posting the adjusting entries from the accountants means that closing entries will be generated for each adjusting entry. This creates clutter in the GL. Instead of having to close the year-end before posting to the next year, it would be useful to be able to post to a future year and still have the current year open for posting. Other programs such as SAP allow for this functionality.
by: Mike M. | over a year ago | Financial Management
Comments
This is very much required and demanded by most of Accpac customer, very good to have this feature.
I do not see this as a useful feature. You can close the year and post to prior year as required, this is a control issue.
Ettienne, how is this a control issue? Other systems allow this function, and it greatly reduces the clutter and extra detail posted to the GL.
Ettienne - I agree. I don't see this as a value added enhancement. There are many more features that are more important than eliminating a few closing entries in the GL.
I concur with Ettienne. It is not "demanded by most of Accpac customer". In fact, after 20 years of Accpac consulting, it has _never_ been asked to me.
Seems pointless. Like other contributors this has never been mentioned by any user as an issue. It is transparent to the end-user.
I don't see the problem with the way it works now.
I don't see a problem with the current process.
I think that this is not a control issue.
To the extent that it might be, the application should be able to do so without prejudice to users who need to post to future years.
Think about a deferred income business who invoices annually in advance. How would they handle the current process?
What about if the system just posted the subledger batches to the future year (if the setting is to automatically post to GL) that way you stop the situation where users decide in their wisdom to delete these "continually creating error batches"! and stops the GL batch list from looking messy and ensures the subledgers stay in balance.
I agree. I have customers who delay running Create New Year until they have finished most of the year end work, because they (or their auditors) don't like seeing all the closing transactions created if create new year has already been run. This means the GL batches for the first month can't be posted or get errors.
Posting to a future period without closing the prior year can be a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not quite sure why it is felt that the GL looks 'messy' when post prior year transactions but anyone who understands accounting will know what these are and accountants appreciate this detail.
If alowed to post to future year without closing the prior year, what balances should be shown on GL reports for Income/Expendiure accounts? Bearing in mind that these accounts would not have been closed out for the prior year.
I am not seeing the great benefits of this feature.
I agree with Eva, the real problem is the 'Error batches' for future year info. I have clients using future year entries throughout the year (retainage -type issues but not using the retainage function - it doesnt fit) and it is very ugly in the GL batch list until the new year is created.
I assume most of the user that see no use for this feature work for small firms. Our cycle of posting to the GL is 24/7/365 and forcing us to decide between closing the fiscal year before most of our year-end entries are complete or requiring GL posters to put their ongoing new fiscal year entries on hold until we close the prior year is a burden. I have never worked in a system before Sage 300 that did not allow users to post in any unlocked period. Sheldon - Reporting isn't an issue. If you haven't completed the prior fiscal year it is highly unlikely you need current fiscal year reporting.