Setting up your first financial year
Your new, empty account will not have a Year end set - you will need to do this using the Accounts - Setup - Year end screen.
As long as a period has no transactions within, it can be deleted if you need to. Once you've entered transactions, that period cannot be removed.
Closing the financial year
Once you have entered all you need at the end of the year, then you can close the accounts. Usually your accountant will post some journals to account for depreciation, losses and so on, as well as any tax adjustments, before you close the year.
Of course your accountant should just log on and do this for you - there is no need to export information or send a backup! You can create a new financial year and can continue working in the new period whilst your accountant is preparing the previous year's final accounts.
They may wish to lock the accounts for that previous year before closing the period, which will prevent you from entering transactions into that period whilst they are working on it.
Locking accounts for edit
Any member of staff with accounts priviledges can lock a period for their exclusive access. You can use this to ensure that nobody enters data into your previous financial year, without actually closing the period. Visit Accounts - Setup - Year end and choose to lock the accounts.
The Year End journal
When you click "close period", Brightpearl will post your Year end journal automatically for you to clear down the balances ready for the next period.
All the balances on the Sales and Purchase accounts are summed, to give your profit, which is transferred onto your profit account. Your asset balances are not affected. The year end journal is type "YE", and will not be included on a P&L or Balance sheet report of you are viewing those reports for a previous year. Note that you need to view reports for a previous year from the Year End screen.
What do I need to do for Year end?
There are a number of things that will ensure that your year end profit and balances are correct:
- Reconcile all your bank accounts
- Do a stock take on the last day of the year and make sure that Brightpearl is up to date
