Year End Process in Sage 200

In this Tip of the Week, we’re going to take you through the year end process step by step as well as what you can do beforehand to make the process smoother.

Pre Period-End Tasks

Here are a few suggestions of tasks and reports you can complete ahead of your period end.

Close All Accounting Periods

Before closing periods, it is strongly advised that you back up your database. When carrying out a close period procedure, make sure all Sage 200 users are logged out and do not carry out the procedure if there are users still logged in.

The Nominal Adjustments must be closed last, but all the other ledgers can be closed off in any order.

To close accounting periods, go to Accounting System Manager > Accounting Periods > Maintain Accounting Periods.

Select the period you wish to close and click ‘Change Period Status’.

All periods must be closed before you can run the Year End procedure.

At this point, the Year End company will be created. This is done via SQL and will usually be done by PKF Smith Cooper Systems.

Ensure users stay out of Sage while this happens – it is handy to know what you wish the Year End company to be called, and which users will need access to it so that this can be set up immediately for you.

In the Live company, go to Nominal Ledger > Period End Routines > Year End.

You must tick that you have produced the listed reports, and be happy that you have any other reports needed, as the Year End process is irreversible.

It is always recommended that you select ‘Yes’, and double check that you are happy with the dates for all the period start and end dates in the next financial year. If these are correct, close the window.

You must now run the Account Maintenance to clear down profit and loss transactions and move them into historical. If you do not wish to move these transactions into Historical, do not run this step as this is not something that can be reversed without restoring back to the year end backup.

Nominal Ledger > Period End Routines > Account Maintenance

NB: If you miss this stage and begin processing in Sage, you cannot run it retrospectively as this will move all current transactions into historical. Instead, you must wait until next year end or restore to a pre year end backup and run the whole thing again.

You must now open at least the first set of periods – this depends on the number of periods you have open at a time. This is the same process as closing them:

Accounting System Manager > Accounting Periods > Maintain Accounting Periods

Select the Future Period and ‘Change Period Status’ – this will set the period/ledger to Open.

Nominal Ledger > Period End Routines > Update Waiting Postings

Any postings that were dated in the first period but posted before this period was opened will now be moved from ‘Waiting’ into ‘Current Transactions’. The Year End procedure is now complete and users can begin processing in the new/current financial year.