Many of you are aware how to copy balances forward once your fiscal year changes, but do you know what to do if you need to post an entry in an old fiscal year? Since this is something you only do once a year, or maybe every few years, we thought we would provide you with the following directions.
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First of all you will need to delete your Balance Forward (BF) journals. To do this, find the BF journal the current fiscal year. (You will find these in General Ledger Post). For example, if your fiscal year starts July 1, 2015 then you will find the latest BF journal with an effective date of July 1, 2015. Once you locate that journal, open it, then select DELETE ALL, to delete all those entries. When you are done deleting all those entries, click done and get out of General Ledger Post. (Note: Balance Forward journals are comprised of taking your balances from all Asset, Liability and Fund Balance accounts and carrying the balance forward to the new fiscal year.)
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Next you will need to change the Fiscal Year Start Date. The reason for this is so you can go into the Closing Entries (CE) journal and delete it. You can’t delete it until you are in the old fiscal year. To change the fiscal year, click on the Gear button in the bottom left hand corner of the main menu. Next click on the Organization tab at the top of the screen and then click on the Accounting Defaults tab. Look for the fiscal year start date field and change the year value to be the previous year. Make sure you tab off of the field before clicking on Done. Once you click on Done then you should be able to continue. If for some reason the program will still not let you delete the CE journal then please close and reopen Pro Fund Accounting. Example: If you came into the screen and it said your fiscal year start date was July 1, 2020, then you would want to change it to July 1, 2019. Once this is changed, you are then allowed by the system to make entries in the year July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020. Beware, if you need to go back more than one fiscal year, you will need to do all the steps for multiple years. You may want to contact one of our staff if you need to do that.
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Now that you’ve deleted the Balance Forward journal and changed the fiscal year to the previous fiscal year, you can now delete the Closing Entries journal. To do this, click on General Ledger Post and find the Closing Entry Journal (CE). You will need to find the appropriate journal to open. In our example above, we found the July 1, 2015 journal for the Balance Forward journal, so you would need to find the June 30, 2015 CE journal. (Closing Entry journals are all those entries needed to close your expense and revenue accounts and the difference goes to your fund balance account. This is done at the end of the fiscal year.) Once you find the appropriate CE journal, open it, then select Delete All. Once completed complete Done and get out of General Ledger Post.
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Since your Balance Forward (BF) journal and Closing Entry (CE) journal have been deleted and you’ve changed your fiscal year to the previous fiscal year, you can now making any adjustments you need in the old fiscal year.
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Once you’ve completed all your adjustments, DON’T FORGET to copy your Balance Forward again. (This will make all your closing entries, copy the appropriate balances forward, and change your fiscal year.) You can access Post Balances Forward under the General Ledger menu.
We hope these instructions will help any of you that need to go back into your old fiscal year and make adjustments. Please feel free to print out these instructions so they are handy when you are working on your year-end or with your auditor.
If you have any questions or need additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.