Create Fiscal Years and Accounting Periods
- Majvina Lekaj
The Accounting Periods window is used to create new fiscal years, define accounting periods and close fiscal years. The shortest possible accounting period is one day. You must set up at least one accounting period for each fiscal year. The window contains a line for each accounting period. To open the Accounting Periods window,
Type “Accounting Period” in the search bar and choose the related link
2. Click on process and select create fiscal year to create a new fiscal year.
3. After the pane for creating the fiscal year is opened, fill in the options as explained below,
Starting Date | This option indicates the date at which the fiscal year begins. |
No. of Periods | In this option, the number of accounting periods in the fiscal year is specified. Be it 12 (for monthly periods), 4 (for quarterly periods) or 1 (for yearly periods). |
Period Length | This option indicates how long each period is. For example, 1 (for monthly periods), 3 (for quarterly periods), and 12 (for yearly periods) |
and click ok
The fiscal year with its accounting periods gets created
This is typically set as a monthly periods.
Accounting Periods can also be created manually. This usually occurs when the period length for the accounting periods is not equal.
With this, after the accounting period window is opened, click on new and fill in the options as explained below.
Starting Date | The date that the accounting period begins. |
Name | This must reflect the name of the month in the starting date. |
New Fiscal Year | Tick this box in the starting date is also the start date of a new fiscal year. |
Follow the same steps above to create other accounting periods with the fiscal year.
Closing a Fiscal Year
After you open the accounting period table, select the year you wish to close.
Click on process and select close year.
Before a fiscal year is closed, you must ensure that at least one fiscal year is opened. Also, note that after you close one year, you cannot change the starting date of the following year.
After you close a fiscal year, the closed and date locked field on the accounting period table will be ticked for all periods in the year. This cannot be undone.