It’s that time of year again. Closing your year-end accounting is usually stressful for many reasons, but these tips will help eliminate stress from your Sage 100 accounting system. If you use Sage 100 Payroll, see our separate post on closing out that application.
Watch your posting dates.
Most people enter lots of documents into the system with 12/31 dates. Customer and vendor invoices, customer receipts and vendor AP checks. RMA’s, PO goods receipts, manufacturing and inventory postings, etc.
The single most common complaint about the books while reconciling is that the Period End Open Invoices reports for AR and AP don’t foot to the GL balance. Inventory reports can have the same complaints. Avoid these with some simple rules to coach your team to follow.
Make regular backups.
Some steps in the closing process can remove transaction details. This can be very annoying if you happen to make a mistake during this. So, be diligent in refreshing your backup company’s data, using Library Master facility. You should do this before you start each session during which you will be closing modules.
You should also ensure that your IT operation captures a backup of all your data regularly, but especially right after 12/31, and then at least weekly (preferably nightly) through your closing process.
Check your Retain History Settings.
Most modules have an option that lets you define how long to retain history detail. For example, customer invoice and payment history, GL History, Purchase History, etc. Transactions made before the setting are removed, leaving behind only the related GL Batch posting, which has no details. If you eventually want to do multi-year analyses, losing this detail can get in the way.
Before you start closing, check your settings in each module. You can find them in the Setup folder for each module that has one, usually under its History tab. We recommend that you set each one to the maximum.
Use Paperless Office.
If you don’t yet use this paper-saver, now is the time to set it up. It’s not hard, and it really will simplify your Period End reporting. Now you can physically print only the reports you want to have at that time to markup and compare. (If you don’t like it, you can easily go back…)
Reconcile Each Module.
See our related post about reconciliations. Step through each of your modules to to ensure that all are reconciled and read fro the next period. In nearly all cases, be sure to make modifications to GL balances through the subsidiary ledgers (such as Invoicing, AP Checks, etc.) using credit or debit memos as appropriate. Make adjustments directly using Journal Entries usually makes reconciliation harder. (Of course allocations and related entries need to be just JE’s.)
Make any special Period- or Year-End Entries.
It is best to make these final allocations and related changes after all your regular processing is reconciled. Otherwise, you risk complicating the process.
Run Period End for Each Module.
When all have been reconciled, run the Period End processing, or just change the Current Period setting in Setup for the module.
Make an Archive Copy.
Many customers make a special Company to hold their fully-reconciled database. It is certainly not required, as any closed period in modern versions of Sage 100 can be readily reopened as long as the history was retained. Some users prefer the extra safety.
Of course, if you have questions or problems about these, let us know. The call is included as part of your Knowledge Transfer Agreement.