Article # 1010

Article # 1010
Technical Note: How to Change the Fiscal Year in AccountMate for LAN
Difficulty Level: Intermediate Level AccountMate User
Intermediate Level Visual FoxPro Programmer
Version(s) Affected: AccountMate 8 for LAN
AccountMate 7 for LAN
Module(s) Affected: SM
Posting Date: 10/16/2013
DESCRIPTION
An accounting fiscal year usually coincides with the operating cycle of an
organization; however, there may come a time that, due to one of the following
reasons, you want to change your accounting fiscal year:
1. To be in accordance with the financial reporting year adopted by other
organizations in the industry
2. To provide sufficient time when preparing the financial reports
3. To take into consideration the commercial or seasonal factors relating to your
industry.
This Technical Note discusses the procedures necessary to change your company's
fiscal year in AccountMate.
SOLUTION
Assume that your company's current fiscal year is from October 2012 to September
2013. During the 12th period of the current fiscal year (Sep 2013), you want to
change the fiscal year to start in January and end in December 2013. See Figure 1.
Old Fiscal Year
Year
Period
Calendar
Year
Period
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Oct-12 Nov-12 Dec-12 Jan-13 Feb-13 Mar-13 Apr-13 May-13 Jun-13
2012
2012
2012
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
10
11
12
1
2
3
4
5
6
New Fiscal Year
Figure 1. Old and New Fiscal Year Definition
2012
2012
2012
10
11
12
Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13
2013
2013
2013
7
8
9
To change the fiscal year, perform the following procedures:
1. Create a new company with the same GL account segment definition and number
of fiscal periods as the existing company. Be sure to specify the new starting date
in the First day of the Fiscal Year field. The value in the Current Fiscal Year field
will depend on the fiscal year change. If you are changing from a non-calendar
to a calendar fiscal year, the value should be the current fiscal year. In this
example, the values in the First day of the Fiscal Year and Current Fiscal Year
fields will be 01/01/13 and 2013, respectively. See Figure 2. If you are changing
from a calendar to a non-calendar fiscal year, the current fiscal year value
should be the year in which the start date or the end date of the fiscal year
belongs. For example, if the new fiscal year will start on October 2012 and end
on September 2013; then, the value in the Current Fiscal Year field will be either
2012 or 2013.
Figure 2. Add Company
If you attempt to change the dates through the Fiscal Period Table Setup function
in the existing company so that the first period in 2013 is 01/01/13 to 01/31/13,
you must also change the prior and future years. This process will result in
incorrect prior year Financial Statements; thus, it is preferable that you add a
new company. You can use the old company to generate Financial Statements
prior to January 2013; and you can use the new company to generate Financial
Statements for January 2013 and later.
2. Grant access rights to your groups and users so that they can access the new
company. You can assign group and user access rights using the Group/User
Setup function in the Administrator program.
3. Using the Windows Explorer or a DOS command, copy all the files in the old
company's data directory except the coacpd.dbf, coacpd.cdx, and coacpd.fpt files
to the new company's data directory.
If you are using the Payroll module, you must also backup the old company
database and restore it to the new company database using the SQL Server
Management Studio.
4. Since AccountMate assigns a fiscal period value to each transaction in GL, when a
subsidiary module is closed all the records for the current fiscal year in the GL
transaction file must be changed to reflect the new periods. For example, a
January 2013 transaction from AR is assigned period 4 with year 2012; this
period must be changed to period 1 with year 2013. To perform a mass update
on the new company, you may use the commands below in Visual FoxPro.
cd d:\amlan\data\co2\
use gltrsn
delete all for cyear='2011'
delete all for cyear='2010'
delete all for cpdno=' 3' and cyear ='2012'
delete all for cpdno=' 2' and cyear ='2012'
delete all for cpdno=' 1' and cyear ='2012'
delete all for cpdno=' 0' and cyear ='2012'
replace all cpdno with ' 1', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 2', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 3', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 4', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 5', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 6', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 7', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 8', cyear with ‘2013’
replace all cpdno with ' 9', cyear with ‘2013’
for
for
for
for
for
for
for
for
for
cpdno=' 4' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno=' 5' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno=' 6' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno=' 7' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno=' 8' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno=' 9' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno='10' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno='11' and cyear ='2012'
cpdno='12' and cyear ='2012'
Note: "d:\amlan\data\co2\" is the AccountMate directory for the new company.
5. After using Visual FoxPro to make the above changes, access the Data Manager
function from the Utilities menu. Mark the checkbox corresponding to the
Recalculate Account Balances function; then, click the Process button to proceed
with the recalculation process. Once you finish the process, click the Close button
to exit from the Data Manager function.
Note: Prior to recalculating account balances, be sure that you exit from Visual
FoxPro and no other users are in AccountMate. To determine if there are users
accessing AccountMate, you may use the Current User Login List function in the
main toolbar in AccountMate.
6. Post a journal entry for the GL account beginning balances in January 2013
(which is now period 1 in fiscal year 2013). These beginning balances are prior
year ending balances that are supposed to be automatically forwarded during
year-end closing. You can use the December 2012 financial statements as the
basis for this journal entry.
Changing fiscal years in AccountMate for LAN may affect data integrity and may
make your data susceptible to corruption. To ensure that you will have a reliable
data even after changing the fiscal year, the foregoing discussion provides you with
the procedures how to change fiscal year in AccountMate for LAN. If you have
questions concerning the performance of this procedure or if you need
further assistance concerning this issue, please
contact devconsulting@accountmate.com.
This information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. AccountMate
Software Corporation disclaims all warranties, either express or implied. In no event
shall AccountMate Software Corporation be liable for any damages whatsoever
including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits, or special
damages, even if AccountMate Software Corporation has been advised of the
possibility of such damages.
Copyright © 1995-2013 AccountMate Software Corporation. All rights reserved.
Legal Notices and Terms of Use • Privacy Statement • Website Feedback