How to close the month
Closing the month is actually very simple but make sure all of your transactions have been entered and are correct, your reports have been run, and your bank statement has been reconciled before doing so. Then, simply make the following selections:
Ledger and Payables → Process → End of Month → Submit
About the accounting period
The current accounting month is the month subsequent to the last month closed by the End-of-Month Process. To find your current accounting month, look at the Ledger & Payables screen just below the icons.
When to close the month
While you are encouraged to keep your accounting month current or current - 1, please know you may always submit future transactions, but only journal entries may be submitted for dates in closed accounting months. Make sure all of your transactions are entered for the month before closing it. Note: to re-open a month, you must contact your managing organization for this service. If you do not belong to a diocese who manages your accounting software options, you would contact Support.
What happens when the month is closed?
End-of-Month processing locks all transactions dated for the current accounting month to the designated accounts and vendors. It also closes the month to record adjustments (unless you have permission to post to prior period transactions). Corrections to any errors in journal entries, deposits, or credit card items must be made by journal entry. Finally, End-of-Month Processing creates a complete historical audit trail. It is generally a good idea to run the end of month process after completing all transactions and after the bank reconciliation is complete.
Current Month
A large benefit of running the end of month process regularly is that most accounting reports have a date selection called This Month. When This Month is selected in the Report Configuration Screen, only data for or through the current accounting month will be selected. If you haven't closed each accounting month, selecting this month will not give you up-to-date information. Using that This Month date option is very helpful when memorizing reports since the same memorized report can then be run each month without having to be modified and memorized again.
To run the end of month process, please complete the following steps in addition to any other processing required by your church:
Complete the bank reconciliation before processing month-end
Since you can still enter bills, checks, deposits, credit card transactions, and journal entries for the next accounting month, you should complete the bank reconciliation for the current accounting month prior to running end-of-month. This will help to ensure that all transactions have been entered correctly for the current accounting month. Also, if there is a correction, you can make it in the current accounting month; if you close the current accounting month, the ability to make a correction on the date of the mistake is lost if you do not have permission to make journal entries in a prior accounting period.
Print Reports (Memorized as a group or Standard Reports generated individually)
You can print reports from prior and current fiscal periods. There are several reports you may need to print each month:
- Bill List
- Check Register
- Deposit Register
- Journal Entry List
- General Ledger
- Statement of Financial Position
- Statement of Activities
- Statement of Dedicated Accounts
- Statement of Cash Flow
If you have not yet memorized these reports, you may do so now: run each report individually for the Current Month and click on the Memorize Report button at the bottom of the screen. You may then add the report to an existing memorized report group or create a new one called Month End Reports.
If you have already created the memorized report group called Month End Reports, click Reports then expand the Month End Reports group. Once the Month End Reports group is expanded, you should see a Preview All Reports link which will allow you to preview all of the reports in that group at once. Once the preview screen is loaded, click on the Print icon to print all of the reports at once. Click on this link for more information about Memorized Reports FAQ's
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Run End of Month Process
Once the bank reconciliation has been completed, all the current month transactions are entered correctly, and the End of Month Reports group has been printed, it is time to run the End of Month.
- Click the Process icon
- Click End of Period processing
- Click the End-of-Month link
The following screen will show you the current month and year, if you are not ready to end the month at this time then click on the Cancel button. If you are ready to end the month at this time, click the Submit button to process end-of-month.
Once the end of month process is completed, the Ledger and Payables dashboard will display and will show you the new month in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, right below the Home and Logout buttons. Now you should be in the next accounting month!
You will find more detail on Month-End Processing in Chapter 12 of the Online User Guide which may be found on the Dashboard under Support & Services.
For information on Closing the Year, see the following Help File Article:
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