Fiscal Year is a 12-month period for which an organization plans the use of its funds. This period may be a calendar year but can be any 12-month period. A fiscal year accounting period should normally coincide with the natural operating cycle of the organization.
Fiscal Year consists of several Fiscal Periods.
Fiscal Year can be in 3 states:
- Closed
- Opened
- Current (active)
Company must always have a current Fiscal Year.
In Free Accounting the Fiscal Years/Period Feature can be turn on/off. If it is turned off then system doesn't make any checking of dates for Fiscal Year/Period.
If you want to open Fiscal Periods window you should select Company / Fiscal Periods from the Main Menu, check the Use Active Year Feature checkbox to use the Fiscal Periods option.
If you want to create a new Fiscal Year you should press the New Fiscal Year button. The New Fiscal Year window will appear, where the starting date of the new fiscal period should be set. The today's date is given by default.
To delete the last fiscal year press the Delete Fiscal Year button. Fiscal year can be deleted if there is no accounting entries for this year.
To close the fiscal year press the Close Fiscal Year button. Fiscal Year can be closed only if all accounting entries for this year are posted. Closing of Fiscal Year closes all its Fiscal Periods. Closing of fiscal year requires closing of all previous fiscal years.
To open the closed fiscal year press the Re-open Fiscal Year button. The re-opened fiscal year will have an "open" status. Re-opening of fiscal year requires opening of all next fiscal years.
To give the open fiscal year a "current" status press the Activate Fiscal Year button. Only one fiscal year with the "current" status can exist for a company.
To generate periods for the fiscal year in the Free Accounting application you should press the Generate Periods button. Before this choose the number of periods you want to generate from the dropdown:
1 - One fiscal period, dates of which are the dates of the fiscal year.
2 - Fiscal year is divided in to two halves of the year.
3 - Fiscal year is divided in to three periods with four months in each.
4 - Fiscal year is divided in to four quarters.
6 - Fiscal year is divided in to six periods with two months in each.
12 - Fiscal year is divided in to twelve periods.
24 - Fiscal year is divided in to twenty four periods with 15 days in each.
52 - Fiscal year is divided in to fifty two weeks.
To close the Fiscal Period press the Close Period button. In Free Accounting no journal entry can be created for the closed Fiscal Period. It means that no document can be entered into the system with the date which are not in the Opened Fiscal Period of the current Fiscal Year.
To open the Fiscal Period press the Re-open Period button.
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