From time to time a user may need to change the fiscal year start date to correspond to a change in a company's reporting period (usually for tax purposes).

In changing to a new fiscal period you must first make sure that you have not posted any transactions into the new fiscal period. If you have, additional steps will need to be taken to correct the data and put it into the correct year. You should also make sure that you have entered all transactions for one year past before doing a year end close because you cannot enter information any further back in time than one year prior to your fiscal year start date.

Do NOT change the fiscal year start date without first taking the following steps:

1. In General Ledger go into Print Detail Trail Balance (option E) and print a report to the screen that starts with the beginning date of the new fiscal year through the end of the current fiscal year and make sure that there is no information on the report. (If not, stop and call for assistance.) Also go into Print Financial Statements and print an income statement (as well as a balance sheet with the balance forward option set to "N") using the current year and enter the beginning month of the new fiscal year through the last month of the current fiscal year. Again, if any amounts appear whatsoever, stop and call for assistance. 
2. Make a back-up copy of file BKGLCOA.BXX (where XX is the company code; this will be blank if it is your "main" company, i.e. normally the one that the systems default to when it first loads). 
3. Run the reclose program for one year past to make sure all is well for one year past data (System Maintenance option L) 
4. It is recommended that you next run a balance sheet (answer "Y" when asked if you want to update retained earnings) and print it for reference purposes. 
5. Run the year end program - General Ledger option K. (Note: this will clear the commission file.) 
6. As soon the step above is done, go into System Maintenance A and then A again and change the fiscal year start back to the fiscal year start date of your new fiscal year. In step (5) the date would have been advanced by one full year. It is only at this point that you would then adjust that date back to the appropriate starting date of the new fiscal year. This must be the first day of the month. Check and double check because this date is absolutely critical for the system to post to the correct period! 
7. If you had transactions posted into your new fiscal period, it is at this point you would need to run a special utility or otherwise fix the appropriate "buckets" in the BKGLCOA file. 
8. Run a re-close of one year past amounts to recompute retained earnings, etc. (System Maintenance option L) 
9. Run a balance sheet answering "Y" to the question about updating retaining earnings and then proceed to run balance sheets for the current year and one year past to make sure that everything is okay. 

Note that in General Ledger option A it will now show the one year past as a short year with not all of the months showing data. Your new year will now show under the current year. 

Note also that you will have to be very careful not to enter any transactions in the period that should have no data: in other words, the system will not "know" that you had a short year in one year past. So, it would let you make entries into the months that should be completely zero. We would therefore strongly recommend that the control date be set under System Maintenance A then E to prevent this from occurring.