Hey
New guy here and not very experienced though trying my best to learn quickly.
My question is around when to journal funds from P&L accounts to equity account? We run our books from Jan1 to Dec 31 on an older fashioned systsm. If I run a report its going to look at all transactions during and including those dates, so if I journal in the 31st of the year then its going to show a bad P&L report becuase it would have taken into account those transactions. So should I journal on the 1st day in the new year. Will this affect the report I run at the end of that new year?
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Does the system not clear the P & L accounts when a year end function is run?
If the system does not have a means of locking earlier periods (so a later mistaken date entry cannot impact the earlier year figures) I doubt I would be using the software.
Hey
So i'm using a Cloud system that was built in an Agile fashion, meaning that its got the bare bones. So it doesn't have an auto-feature to close out the year yet. So it relies on users doing the work, its only a couple of journals anyway. But the issues is when to date the journal, i've worked with some systems that have done some weird stuff in the past, like create a 13th monthly period etc. What I need to know is, if when doing the year end manually, what date should the posting for zeroing the P&L accounts be? I don't want the P&L report to show no Profit!
You would clear down the 1st day of the new year. So the end of the last is correct and the start of the new is also correct.
Obviously your clear down will only include p and l figures relating to the year previous so any figures starting on the first day of the new year would stay intact.
As noted, most systems will have a year end function which will do this for you. What system are you using?
Side issue - is your older system MTD compliant for submitting the VAT returns? Usually there is an upgrade to the most recent version required.
Hey
So i'm using a Cloud system that was built in an Agile fashion, meaning that its got the bare bones. So it doesn't have an auto-feature to close out the year yet. So it relies on users doing the work, its only a couple of journals anyway. But the issues is when to date the journal, i've worked with some systems that have done some weird stuff in the past, like create a 13th monthly period etc. What I need to know is, if when doing the year end manually, what date should the posting for zeroing the P&L accounts be? I don't want the P&L report to show no Profit!
Is there any software support available that could help you? Something like a 13th month or a "Period end" journal type might be the answer.
Is this the first year end on the system, or can you check the history to see how this was posted previously.
I'm new here, i didn't want to look through previous records to make sense of this, I was just looking for a surefire answer of "you use the current date, because of X". Surely there is a industry practice for which date apply the posting!
Does it report with comparatives?
If I do a this year P & L does it give me this year in one column and prior year in another.?
If this is the case, and it reports these by date of transaction (and if it does not have period/year end process that surely is how it would work,) then I would use 1st of month so that the comparatives have an entry.
if it does not do comparatives then frankly it probably does not matter.
As I said earlier, I would not use any system that does not close earlier periods, they can be a nightmare if someone later, say by mistake, enters a this year transaction but with a previous year date, if comparatives are shown they will be thrown out, will not tie up with final accounts and may be a right pain to track down.
Your not using waveapps by any chance are you?
Aside from what others have already said about using software that doesn't let you lock down previous periods,
If you clear down the P and L on the first day of the new year using the figures from the last day of the previous year. Then you will get what you are looking for.