Fiscal Year End Close in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
Posted on: July 24, 2019 | By: Jarrod Kraemer | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365
It is never too early to start preparing for your company’s fiscal year-end close. Luckily, if you are running on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, you can get through fiscal year-end close with ease.
This blog is continuing with the assumption that the company has completed their month-end close for all subsidiary legal entities and their respective modules that are in use. Also, it is assumed that any necessary consolidations that needed to occur have already been ran (click here for how to run a consolidation). For an example on how to run your monthly inventory close please click here.
The first objective is to create a new fiscal year if you haven’t already done so. In the legal entity you are closing, travel to the address General Ledger> Setup> Fiscal Calendars. Create the new fiscal year.
Next, go to the address General Ledger> Setup> Ledger. Select the Ledger calendar.
In the fiscal year you are closing, put all periods ‘On hold’. This will ensure that no other transactions can be booked for that year. It is highly suggested to not put the period to the status of ‘Closed’. Once a period is closed, it cannot be re-opened. To repeat, a period that is closed cannot have its’ status changed back to Open or On hold. Putting the period on hold has the same effect of changing the status of closed, so there really is no advantage of closing a period.
After you are done with the current fiscal year, switch to your future fiscal year, in our case the year 2016, and change the first couple of periods to open, so you are able to make transactions, and the rest periods to on hold.
If you have a 13th period in which you make adjustments prior to closing your fiscal year, please continue to read this portion about the closing sheet. Feel free to continue to the next section and last step if your company does not use a 13th period.
As mentioned previously, the closing sheet is used to make adjustments prior to closing your fiscal year close. Go to the address General ledger> Periodic> Fiscal year close> Closing sheet. Click New to create a new closing sheet. Click on the General tab to choose what date you would like this to post in the ‘Post’ field and also to which posting layer (Current, Tax, or Operations).
Click the ‘Closing accounts’ at the top the form and then ‘Load balances’ also at the top of the form. You will be brought to this form.
If you already have accounts with balances in your closing sheet and want to replace them with new balances, check the box ‘Delete existing accounts’. Next, click the Select button to bring up the criteria of main accounts you would like transfer to make adjustments. Once complete, click OK and patiently wait as this may take some time depending on how many main accounts you selected. This will take you back to the closing accounts form.
After all the amounts are loaded, click the Transfers option that is now available. This form will allow you to transfer the amount of your choosing to another ledger account (the offset account). Please note that in the previous form, closing accounts, the current trial balance amount is given.
After you have designated the offset accounts and amounts for every account you have loaded, click the Post button in the closing accounts form.
The last step is to transfer the closing balances of your fiscal year to the opening balances of your new fiscal year. In order to accomplish this, go to the address General Ledger> Periodic> Fiscal year close> Opening transactions. Please make note of your General ledger parameters at the top of the form. It is highly recommended that you do not check the box next to ‘Set fiscal year status to closed’ as that will automatically close the prior fiscal year periods. I cannot stress enough how important it is to not set your periods to close as it cannot be undone.
In the end date field, select your last day of your fiscal year (ex. 12/31/2015). In the balance accounts field, you will select the transfer method for your balance accounts. Closing-> Opening automatically creates the opening transactions and is the suggested method. The main account for transfer of year-end result field is where you would select your retained earnings account. In the financial dimension tab, clicking the Transfer financial dimensions will transfer them to the new fiscal year instead of just the main account. You can either specify a consolidated financial dimensions in the profit and loss transactions area or select the close all check box to use the default account string.
Finally, click OK to run your opening transactions. This process can be completed as many times as you would like, in case you wanted to make any final adjustments before opening the new fiscal year.
We hope that this blog can make your fiscal year-end close on Dynamics AX 2012 a bit more painless.
For additional information please feel free to contact us at Logan Consulting or call (312) 345-8817.