Basic Month End Close

The basic month end close is intended to prevent transactions from posting to a period that has been reconciled. AccuBuild will compare the System Cutoff date to the Fiscal Year End date, and if the system cutoff date is NOT in the same month as the fiscal year end date, then the system will attempt to close the month as reflected by the system cutoff date. For example, if the system cutoff date is 01/01/2012 and the fiscal cutoff date is 12/31/2012, then AccuBuild will attempt to close the month of January.

The basic month end procedure will begin by performing a series of integrity tests, including those located on the Integrity Tests menu option within each module, to check for any errors. If errors are found, then you will then have the option to cancel the month end routine. Be sure to print the error report before closing the screen. AccuBuild's support staff can assist you with clearing any of the errors.

If no integrity test errors have been found, then the program will begin closing out each module one at a time. This procedure mainly consists of updating the various month-to-date and year-to-date accumulators in the system. The program will also update the system and payroll cutoff dates with the next accounting period date. For example, if the month of January 2012 is closed, the system will update the system and payroll cutoff dates with the date 02/01/2012.

Once the period has been closed, transactions may not be posted with a date that is prior to the new cutoff date unless the Allow Prior Period Transactions option has been enabled on the File > System Administrator > Configuration > Accounting Tab.

Please note that you cannot change the beginning balances in the general ledger unless you enter a post closing journal or manually change the prior year's balance fields in the Chart of Accounts. If you decide to manually change the prior year's balance on an account, then be sure to perform the Update G/L Master integrity test after making your changes.

Close the Month

Go to each module and select Integrity Tests > All Test. Click OK to start the process. If integrity test errors are found, contact the AccuBuild Support Team for assistance in clearing the errors. Note: It is recommended that you perform these tests prior to doing your account reconcilations so that you are sure that you are working with accurate account balances.

2.	If no integrity test errors are found, then go to File > System Administrator > Configuration > Accounting Tab.

Review the System Cutoff Date and the Payroll Cutoff Date. These dates must be in the same month in order to close the month. For example, if both fields are dated 01/01/2012, then the month of January will be closed. You may only close a month in the current fiscal year. For example, if your December 2011 fiscal year has not yet been closed, then you cannot close January 2012.

If December is not the end of your fiscal year, then you may need to change the payroll date to match the system date. For example, if your fiscal year ended November 30, 2011, but you are not ready to close the month of December by January 1st, then you will still need to close the Payroll calendar year by itself in order to do the first payroll in 2012. Closing the payroll year is a separate process so please refer to that documentation. With your system cutoff date at 12/1/2011 and your payroll cutoff date as 1/1/2012 (which indicates that the payroll year was closed independently), you would get an 'invalid date' error when closing the month of December. You would need to temporarily change the payroll cutoff date back to 12/1/2011 and then close the month. The program would update the System and Payroll dates to 1/1/2012 for you but be sure to perform the Payroll > Integrity Tests > Update Employee Totals option to be sure that the year-to-date earnings are correct.

3.	Be sure that the 'Enable Prior Period Transactions' option is not checked so that new entries cannot be posted to the period you are closing, nor any period before that.

4.	Click OK to save any changes you may have made.

5.	Be sure that you have a current backup of your data and ask all other AccuBuild users to exit the program completely. You must be the only user in the system when closing the month.

6.	Go to File > System Administrator > Month End. Click the Start Month End Closeout Process button.

•The system will perform a series of integrity tests and will notify you if any errors exist. Please contact the AccuBuild Support Team to assist you with correcting any errors.

•If no errors exist, the system will perform an internal backup of your data and store it in a zip file (ie. MExxxx.zip) in the \accubld8\companyname\ folder.

•The system will then update the System and Payroll cutoff date fields to the first day of the following month. The program will then be closed.

•The Month End process has been updated (ver. 10.2.0.1) to include the close out steps in the User Activity Log for easier access when reviewing the closeout process. In addition, the Month End closeout text file that is stored in the company directory has been updated to include the hours, minutes and seconds of the file creation time in the file name. (ie. MEMMYYYY_HH_MM_SS.zip)

Alternatively, you may also close a month by manually updating the System and Payroll cutoff dates (refer to steps 1 and 2 above). Unlike the Month End menu option, integrity tests will not be automatically performed and an internal backup of your data will not be created. You may manually perform the 'All Tests' integrity tests in each module at any time and you should create an external backup of your data on a daily basis. Also, this method does not require that other users exit the program.

8.	Be sure to refer to the documentation on closing your fiscal year as this process cannot be performed manually.