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Month End

I'm curious, for example, today is a new month and I will not officially month end for another couple of days. With this in mind, how do I continue to enter my payables and receivables? Manipulate the dates and periods? or how does everyone else handle this?

Thanks,

Felica Sparks
Cre8ive Benton Newton & Partners Advertising

I'm curious, for example, today is a new month and I will not officially month end for another couple of days. With this in mind, how do I continue to enter my payables and receivables? Manipulate the dates and periods? or how does everyone else handle this?

Thanks,

Felica Sparks
Hanson Dodge Design

Switch over to the new period immediately (as default). Then manipulate your A/P on significant O/H invoices only.

If you A/R client in OCT but back date the invoice to SEP, then be sure to capture all your direct cost invoices in period SEP. If the invoices have not arrived, accrue them.

Roxanne Cowan
Rutherford Bolen Group Integrated Marketing

On the first day of the month I go into setup:preferences:Accounting periods and I change my current accounting period as well as unlock the accounting period. For example our fiscal year ended on September 30, 01. So this morning I unlocked period 13 and changed the current accounting period to 13. All of the other accounting periods are locked except for period 12 (which is september for us). As I receive invoices I code them to period 12 if I already billed the client for them. If I haven't billed the client I code them to period 13. I will officially close period 12 about the fifteenth of October. On that day I will go in and lock period 12. From that day forward the invoices will be coded to period 13 no matter when the client was billed. However, on Nov. 1 the cycle starts all over again. I will open up period 14 and the invoices will then be entered into period 13 or 14 depending upon when I billed the client. I do the same with Accounts Receivable. Even though I opened period 13 today I will still code my September billings that I am working on to period 12.

Lynn Ebben
Marketlink

As long as the period is correct, you can continue to enter both and still run an aging as of month end.

Pamela A. Brosch, CPA
Chief Financial Officer
HSR Business to Business Inc.

If you're referring to items which relate to September, just continue to enter them with period 9 and the date to which they relate (for payables the date of the invoice, for receivables whatever day you're billing as of).

Assuming that your GL Accounting Period parameters are still set for September as the default month, for October items you can just change the period to 10.

You can intermingle the postings as much as you need to up until you close September.

Note the above periods assume you're on a calendar year.

I usually leave the default at the prior period through running preliminary financials and evaluating them. When I'm ready to do final I switch the period to the new period and lock the prior period so there won't be any inadvertent postings. If I discover another JE I need to make I'll unlock the period temporarily to do it.

Brent A. Byrd
Point Zero, Inc.

On the first of the month, I go in and change the Accounting Period under Setup/Preferences, the enter payables in the new period - unless they are invoices for thgings like Overhead Expenses that are attributable to the previous period. If they are, then you have to click on the appropriates box and change the accounting period back for the previous month. The payables that are attributable to jobs should be expensed in the current period. The matching of these expenses will be taken care of because they actually go into WIP against the appropriate job until that job is billed. Hope that helps.

Terry L. Jones, Jr.
Controller
Harvey and Daughters, Inc.

For accounts payable, we continue to voucher and just voucher to the correct accounting period. Clients and profits allows you to voucher to different accounting periods. We do run a clean vendor aging before the first disbursement of the new month. That way we usually only have one more run of vouchering to add to make sure we tie out to general ledger.

In accounts receivable, we do not enter any payments or do any billing for the new month until we close the current month. We usually try to close by the 8th of the month. The dates on the billing would be for the current month. Occasionally, I will export an accounts receivable to my desktop and change the billing date if I have a client that has a particular cut-off date and I need those billing dollars in the current month.

In the past, I could not get clean end of month reports when I went ahead and posted new month accounts receivable payments or billing.

Hope this helps.

Deanna Cummins
David K. Burnap Agency

Yes. I do. I keep my payables & receivables & their periods & dates ONLY in that current month until they are in balance (with one exception) before I continue to the next month and new period. If I receive a vendor invoice after I have closed a period, I date it the 1st day of the new month ex: 10/1/01. That way I always know it came in late. I'm never out of balance and my reports run more smoothly with this procedure, I can usually balance A/P & A/R by the 2nd day of each month. I also print all my client statements for month end, before I process any client billing or post any client payments.

Karen Cupp
p11creative

Leave both September and October accounting periods open so that you can enter payables into either month. Just change the period on the entry screen. Same for receivables. When your done entering September invoices, etc., just close the accounting period.

Shannon Ellis
Business Manager
Tackett Barbaria Design Group

I change the Accounting Period to the current month on the first day of the new month and then correct the entry date when finishing up the prior month's AP and AR, etc.. Otherwise the current month's time entries don't go into the correct month and the Overhead Allocation Worksheet will not calculate properly. This is more important to me than having to correct the date when finishing up the prior month's work.

Dawn Jaworski
Gabriel deGrood Bendt