General Ledger: To Define a Financial Year

In this activity, you will learn how to set up a financial year, generate periods for the first year, and open the generated periods.

Story

Suppose that the SweetLife company starts its operations in January 2024, each of its financial periods lasts one month, and an additional period for posting adjustments is necessary. Acting as an administrator, you need to set up the financial year that meets these criteria, generate periods for the financial year, and open them.

Process Activity

In this activity, you will configure the structure of the financial year on the Financial Year (GL101000) form. On the Master Financial Calendar (GL201000) form, you will generate periods of the first financial year. Finally, on the Manage Financial Periods (GL503000) form, you will open the financial periods.

System Preparation

Before you start defining the financial year, make sure that the company with an actual ledger has been created, as described in Company Without Branches: To Configure a Company Without Branches and General Ledger: To Create an Actual Ledger.

Step 1: Setting Up a Financial Year

To set up the first financial year, do the following:

  1. Sign in to the company you have prepared with the admin username.
  2. Open the Financial Year (GL101000) form.
  3. In the Financial Year Starts On box of the Summary area, select 1/1/2024.
  4. In the Period Type box, make sure Month is selected.
  5. Select the Has Adjustment Period check box.
  6. On the form toolbar, click Create Periods.
  7. Click Save to save the settings of the financial year.

Step 2: Generating Periods for the First Financial Year

To generate the financial periods for the first financial year, do the following:

  1. Open the Master Financial Calendar (GL201000) form.
  2. In the Financial Year box of the Summary area, make sure that 2024 is selected.
  3. On the form toolbar, click Generate Calendar.
  4. In the Generate GL Calendar dialog box, which opens, make sure that 2024 is selected in the From Year and To Year boxes, and click OK.

    The system generates periods for the 2024 financial year.

    Tip:
    We do not recommend generating financial periods in the distant future, because doing so would limit and complicate any changes to the configuration of the financial year that may be needed because of organizational changes.

Step 3: Opening the Periods

To open the periods you have generated, do the following:

  1. While you are still on the Master Financial Calendar (GL201000) form, on the More menu, click Open Periods.

    The Manage Financial Periods (GL503000) form opens with the Open option selected in the Action box of the Summary area.

  2. On the form toolbar, click Process All.

    The system opens the Processing dialog box and runs the process of opening periods.

  3. Close the Processing dialog box.