These options enable users to print various month end reports prior to advancing the Nominal Ledger period, to enter prior year journals, perform archiving housekeeping, and to actually advance the Nominal Ledger period or year end. Autoline detects the difference between a period-end and a financial year-end, so it is impossible to run a period-end through the year-end routine and vice versa.
Detailed below is a check list of period-end routines for each ledger, prior to advancing.
Ensure that all daybooks relating to the current period have been printed and that no withheld items are in the invoice buffer.
Run the End current period option [within Sales Ledger Miscellaneous Options] as soon as possible.
The following procedure should be followed:
Select Display current period from the Sales Ledger main menu to make sure the period-end has not already been run.
Run End current period from the Sales Ledger Miscellaneous menu to roll forward by one period.
Other functions which are period-end related but which do not have to be run before the period-end are:
Age analysis: These can be retrospective hence not mandatory to be run prior to period end.
Statements: These can also be retrospective hence not mandatory that they are run prior to period end.
Clear paid documents: The optimum time to run this is after statements and age analysis.
Ensure that all daybooks relating to the current period have been printed and that no withheld items are in the invoice buffer.
Print remittances and cheques can be run at any time but care should be taken entering the posting date on the final page of the run.
Run the option End current period as soon as possible. The Purchase Ledger is usually kept open slightly longer than the Sales Ledger in order to collect and process documents arriving by post.
The following procedure should be followed:
View Display current period in the Purchase Ledger menu to make sure the period-end has not already been run.
Run End current period in the Miscellaneous menu to roll forward by one period.
Other functions which are period-end related but which do not have to be run before the period-end are:
Age analysis: These can be retrospective hence not mandatory to be run prior to period end.
Clear paid documents: The optimum time to run this is after age analysis
Check accruals and run the Post accruals option before the Nominal Ledger is closed for the current period. Ensure that the NL daybook has been printed before it is closed for the current period.
Until the Nominal Ledger period is closed, re-running the Post accruals option will not generate any postings unless new accruals have been added, or changes made to the values of existing accruals.
Make sure that all Fixed Assets relating to the current period have been entered into the system.
Run the Depreciation process for the current period. The option to Report only can be taken to examine totals at any time, but the option to Update and report will generate a journal for posting to the Nominal Ledger. Ensure that the journal has been posted to the Nominal Ledger before the Nominal end of period is performed.
Until the Nominal Ledger period is closed, re-running the Depreciation process option will not generate any postings unless new assets have been added to the file, or changes made to the values of existing assets.
There is no Period end option in the Management Accounts since it takes the current period from the Nominal Ledger and is therefore controlled by it.
Ensure that all daybooks relating to the current period have been printed and that no withheld items are in the invoice buffer.
Ensure that all Financial reports required from the Nominal Ledger are printed. Retrospective reports can be printed from the History file if required.
On selecting the option Period end options, you will be presented with a lower level menu detailing the various period end options.
Cost centre report: The Cost Centre Report provides a list of all transactions sorted by cost centre prefix. Each transaction is either analysed as brought forward, period or carried forward. This report can be run at any time and is not restricted to once monthly.
Expense code report: The Expense Code Report provides a list of all transactions sorted by expense code regardless of the cost centre code. Each transaction is either analysed as brought forward, period or carried forward. This report can be run at any time and is not restricted to once monthly.
Advance nominal ledger period: Assuming that the other end of month routines have run satisfactorily, the final stage for a normal period-end, i.e. if it is not a financial year-end, is to run this option. In order to do this, all accounts users must be logged off, and the system will check this and warn if it is not in stand-alone mode. [ A message such as 'Unable to lock module (NL/##)' or 'Access denied' to particular file which is in use will be displayed.] If necessary, run the Reset in use Flags option in the System maintenance menu, once it has been ascertained that there are no genuine users logged into the module.
Nominal ledger year end: This process is almost identical to the Advance period option covered in the previous section, with the added process that the profit and loss accounts will be cleared down and the total value of them posted to the revenue reserve account. The new year period-end dates will already be on file from the previous year-end process, but you are prompted to enter the following year's period-end dates.
Enter Prior Year Journals: This option allows a user to insert a Nominal ledger Journal after the year end has been advanced, providing the option "Close Prior Year journals" has not been taken .Consequently the journal posting date will always be fixed as the last day of the preceding financial year. The accounts used and input of lines behaves the same as Insert NL Journal entries from the main NL menu.
Close Prior Year Journals: This option will prevent any users from inputting prior year journals, and will allow the Nominal Ledger Year end to run. It will effectively act as the cut-off to stop any further prior year movements being posted to the Nominal Ledger.
