We have a set of procedures you should be familiar with in order to make sure you have accurate financials. Are you familiar with our End of Period Procedures? We call them End of Period Procedures not End of Year Procedures because you can do them more often than just once a year.
The full instructions for End of Period Procedures* are more detailed and tell you what to do if you have a problem. There is a similar document called End of Period Short Procedures*. They are the same procedures but less detailed. If you run into a problem they point you back to the full End of Period Procedures.
*Important note: you must be logged into the support site to view these instructions/links.
We recommend going through our full End of Period procedures if you have never done them or if you only do them once a year. If you are pretty comfortable with our End of Period Procedures and you do them more often than just once a year you can use our End of Period Short Procedures.
Be sure to read through the procedures before doing them. There are two that you need to make sure you do before the end of the year – Inventory reconciliation and Contract Labor Payable reconciliation (if you use that feature).
I have outlined the following steps just to get you started. This is what I would say and walk you through if I was on the phone with you. This is not meant to replace the full End of Period Procedures document.
The First Step:
The first step to all of the procedures is to make sure you are caught up on Job Costing.
The best way to sort your screen to make sure you are caught up on Job Costing is in Sales screen > Inprocess All > All Dates and All Locations if you have more than one. I like to sort that list by the date to bring the oldest to the top. This should be a list of all of your sales that are truly still in process. If you see anything old or that should not be there it may need to be Job Costed or cleaned up.
Step Two:
Make sure you look at your Proposals list with > All Dates and add the Payment column. Sort by the payment column to make sure there are no proposals with payments. If a customer paid for something it should probably be changed to an Order.
Step Three:
Double check your Receivables list with > All Dates as well and make sure this is a list of customers that still owe you money. Clean up these lists as necessary and call with questions.
Step Four:
When looking at your Materials screen there is some cleanup that needs to be done before you can complete the Inventory reconciliation procedure. Look at each list in the Materials screen. POs should be a list of things that need to be ordered; they haven't been ordered yet. On Order should be a list of things that are actually on order. When a truck comes in you should go straight to your On Order list to receive into Stock.
Step Five:
The No Bill list should be a list of materials that we are just waiting for a bill on. If we just placed an order and have not received the bill yet, that's okay. But if there is something old, that needs to be cleaned up.
We do have instructions on our website for No Bill Cleanup and Inventory Balancing to help you see why there may need to be some adjustments. You should not have to do No Bill Clean up every year. Be sure to call us with questions if you are not sure how to clean something up or if you just want to make sure you are doing it correctly.
Step Six:
Do a Physical Inventory Count. Then clean up the Stock list to make sure it reconciles with your physical count. Inventory reconciliation can be a large task and can take some time.
Step Seven:
The Bills screen Current Bills list should be a list of bills that are still due. Sort by Current Bills>All Dates and bring the oldest to the top. There may be some old bills that need to be cleaned up, zero bills, or even blank bills. As always, call for guidance if you are not sure what you are looking for or how to clean it up. This is an area where we really want to be mindful of the accounting.
Step Eight:
As you work through each of these steps there are tools to run. Our End of Period Procedures explains how to run the tools and what dates to use in these procedures. Running the tools does not change or finalize anything in the accounting. They are simply helpful tools to help you make sure everything is running smoothly in your software. These tools will point out a problem if there is one. Follow the detailed instructions for the tool to help find and fix the problem. Sometimes it's a simple refresh and sometimes you need to get us connected.
Step Nine:
Make sure you have reviewed both the Sales/Use Tax Payable and the Contract Labor Payable reconciliation instructions listed in the End of Period Procedures document. As always, call with questions.
Step Ten:
Last but not least, Close the Period. Do not be afraid to Close the Period – it does not change anything in the accounting or make it so you can't see it. Closing the Period simply protects things from accidentally changing. If you need to change something, you still can. You should close the period as soon as you are ready to print the financials for your accountant. That way nothing will accidentally change from when you print your reports and when your accountant gives you any adjusting entries. You can open the period back up if you need to.
These are my End of Period Procedures in a “nutshell” just to help you get started. This is not meant to replace the full End of Period Procedures document. Be sure to read the full Procedures and call with questions. Do not get overwhelmed by the lengthy document but call for help so we can break it down into smaller tasks and give you “homework”. I recommend running through these procedures more often than just once a year. Make running the tools part of your monthly procedures.