Period-end tasks

How the company file changes when you Start a New Financial Year

Caution:  Make a backup before closing the financial year

Idea:  Make a reference copy of your company file before closing the year

When you use the MYOB Accounting Start a New Financial Year feature, your company file is prepared for the new financial year.

During the Start a New Financial Year process, some changes take place automatically and some changes are based upon choices you'll be asked to make.

IMPORTANT:  Some entries don't change

• Entries dated in your NEW financial year

• Journal entries assigned to open invoices, open bills, sales orders and purchase orders.

• Journal entries assigned to reimbursable expenses that haven't been reimbursed.

• Journal entries resulting in a item's on-hand count going less that zero.

These changes take place automatically:

• The previous financial year's monthly totals for all accounts are changed to "last year" categories. If "last year" amounts already exist, those amounts are replaced.

• The balance of your current-year earnings account is transferred to your retained earnings account.

• The balances of your income, cost of sales, expense, other income and other expense accounts are reset to zero.

These changes are based on choices you make during the Start a New Year process:

• Closed transactions and other entries. You can continue to keep closed transactions for up to seven years. (Other entries include timesheets, activity slips and contact log entries. [Only activity slips and timesheets that have been included on sales and payroll transactions will be purged.])

• Unprocessed undeposited funds transactions.

• Unpaid payroll liabilities.

• Audit Trail entries. (Changes and entries recorded by Audit Trail Tracking)

• Item movement entries. (Tracking item movements) (Accounting Plus only)

• Unreconciled transactions in accounts that you reconcile.

Important: Keeping transactions and other entries from one financial year to another may impede system performance

Changing how you define your financial year:

• If you wish, the new financial year can be changed so it ends in a different month than the previous financial year. (If you choose to make this change, check with an accountant about how to report information for a "short" financial year.)

• If you wish, the new financial year can be changed to include 13 accounting periods. If your previous financial year used 13 periods but you didn't make any entries in the 13th period, you can change your new financial year to include only 12 accounting periods.

Step by step

• To close a financial year
• To make a backup
• To restore a backup

Related topic

• Closing a financial year and starting a new one