Year-End Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Dynamics GP

The end of the calendar year is an important period for many businesses. Many organizations have to complete the year-end closing procedures for Microsoft Dynamics GP around this time, which can be a tricky process as there are many details to be aware of. Here are a few tips to make your life easier at this already busy time of the year.

What does the year-end close do?

Closing the year transfers all current-year information for each account in the chart of accounts to account and transaction history. This process also reconciles and summarizes the General Ledger balances accumulated throughout the year, and transfer current-year Profits and Loss amounts to the Retained Earnings account.

What to keep in mind?

If you require assistance with completing the year-end closing procedures for your system, we recommend contacting your partner for support. Many Dynamics GP partners such as JOVACO also offer documentation and training sessions or webinars to ensure you have all the right information to complete the procedure properly. However, here are a few best practices and tips to keep in mind to ensure the process goes smoothly:

• Think ahead to figure out the best moment to proceed. Users will need to be out of the system while the year-end procedure is completed, so make sure that you take into consideration the schedules of all people who will be affected.
• Always do a data backup before doing the year-end processing, then safeguard your year-end backups to make sure they don’t get deleted during normal cleanup routines.
• Make sure you’ve posted all transactions for the period and year for all modules before closing fiscal periods. Otherwise, you will have to return to the Fiscal Periods Setup window to reopen the period before posting the transaction.
• General Ledger transactions can be entered for the next fiscal year without closing the current year until all adjusting entries have been entered and posted to the correct period. However, this means that financial statements will only reflect current-year activity until the year-end close has been completed for the GL.
• The various modules need to be closed before the General Ledger, but Payroll has its own close routine. We recommend completing the year-end procedure for the Payroll module as a separate course of action once the GL has been closed.

Please visit the Microsoft Support blog for the step-by-step year-end close procedure for Microsoft Dynamics GP. JOVACO has been communicating directly with clients to ensure that they have all the proper documentation in hand to perform their year-end procedure. If you require any further assistance, please contact us to book an appointment so that we may assist you during the holiday period.