When a financial year ends, Smart Books can move your closing balances into the next year as opening balances, so you can keep working without re-entering anything. This guide walks through the Year-End Carry Forward screen and the optional step of locking the finished year.
Before you start
- Create the next financial year for the company, so it appears in the lists on the Year End screen.
- Post and review all vouchers for the year you are closing, and check the Trial Balance, Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss from Reports.
- Choose All branches in the company bar. Stock, cost centre, project and party balances are stored for the whole company. If one branch is selected, Smart Books warns you that closing from a single branch would write that branch's balances as the whole company's opening.
- You need permission to use Year-End Carry Forward; if you cannot see it, ask the company owner.
Step 1: Choose the two years
Open Year-End Carry Forward from the Operations menu. Under Financial year selection, set the Closing financial year (the year that just ended) and the Opening financial year (the next one). Smart Books usually fills the opening year in for you.
Step 2: Pick the capital or reserves account
Under Capital / reserves account, search for the ledger that should receive the year's profit or loss, such as your capital or reserves account. This is required when you carry forward Accounts.
Step 3: Choose what to carry forward
Under Choose what to carry forward you can tick three groups, each independent of the others:
- Accounts – ledger opening balances, cost centre balances, project balances, party (sub-ledger) balances and bill-by-bill outstanding.
- Items – stock opening quantity and value.
- Operations – open items in bank reconciliation and vendor reconciliation.
You can close Accounts now and Items later without repeating the rest.
Step 4: Preview before you commit
Select Preview carry forward. Smart Books shows the net profit and a table for each section, with the number of rows. Read any warnings in the yellow box, and compare the amounts with your reports. Nothing has been changed yet.
Step 5: Carry the balances forward
Select Carry forward balances and confirm the message. Smart Books warns that this cannot be automatically reversed. When it finishes, a green box lists how many ledger accounts, stock lines and reconciliation items were carried. To see the new openings in reports, switch to the opening financial year in the company bar.
If you need to run it again
If the carry forward was already done for the same two years, Smart Books says so. To re-run with corrected figures, tick Replace OB-M opening balances. This clears the earlier opening balances and bill-by-bill balances in the new year and writes fresh ones, so use it only when you are sure.
Step 6: Archive the closed year (optional)
Once the year is final, the Closed year (archive) card lets you select Archive year. An archived year refuses cancellations and holds Inventory valuation changes until it is reopened. If you must change it later, select Reopen year and give a reason of at least 10 characters; your reason and name go to the audit log.