Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (GP) Financial Management Tips for Year End Closing

Closing a financial period is a common question so we thought we’d help you with some suggestions.

Pre-Requisites

1. Ensure all Users Have Logged out of the system
2. Take Database backup of Dynamics and Company database on SQL Server
3. Export the Historical Ageing Trial Balance report of AP and AR as well as Transaction History of Inventory and keep copy of the same
4. Verify all the transaction batches are posted for Purchasing, Sales, Inventory, Fixed Assets and Financial transactions, and fixed assets are fully depreciated till the last date of the financial year you want to perform year end.

FYI, as you perform any step, a corresponding report will be generated. Keep the copy of all these reports for future use.

Steps

• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Routines –> Purchasing –> Year End Close. The following window will appear

• Select the Financial Year and click on Close Year. One report will be generated. After you perform this step you can see last closing date of financial may be the system date, ignore this.
• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Routines –> Sales –> Year End Close. The following window will appear

• Select the Financial Year click Process one report will be generated keep a copy of the same.
• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Routines –> Inventory – Year End Close. The following window will appear. You can select the option to remove any discontinued items. All Items marked as discontinued in the item cards will be removed. You can also update the Item’s standard cost at this stage.

• Select the last date of the financial year you want to close (i.e. 06/30/2016) and then click Process. One report will be generated – keep copy of the same.
• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Routines –> Fixed Assets –> Year End. The following window will appear.

• Select the fixed asset book and click Insert and Continue one report will be generated – keep copy of the same.
• Go to Smartlist and generate the list for Chart of accounts and verify all Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss accounts are marked correctly, if there are any errors, correct immediately. This will prevent balances from being brought forward for accounts mistakenly set up as Balance Sheet instead of Income Statement type.
• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Setup –> Financial –> General Ledger and verify that the Retained Earning Account is correct.
• Go to Microsoft Dynamics GP –> Tools –> Routines –> Financial –> Year End Close. The following window will appear

• This process may take a while depending on the number of financial transactions. Two different reports will be generated.
  • Year-end posting Journal,
  • Retained earnings exception account.
• Export these and keep a copy of the accounts.
• Run a Trial Balance for the following year and verify the opening balances that have been brought forward and the amounts posted in the Retained Earnings Account. This will be a consolidation of all the Profit and Loss Account Balances.

Voila… you’re done!