Archiving Fiscal Year Data and Purging Old Jobs

When Sage announced the Multiple Fiscal Year General Ledger capability in the release of Version 19, most clients were truly excited, as they no longer needed to archive off the ending fiscal year data before entering transactions for the new fiscal year.  Every year end I would get numerous calls from clients worried about how they were going to archive off the old fiscal year before they were ready, yet they had transactions to record for the new fiscal year.  Earlier versions of the program had a great facility for continuing to record data for most prior year transactions (period 0 postings), but there were challenges with operator errors and some types of transactions were not period 0 friendly. Thus, the Multiple Fiscal Year General Ledger capability of Version 19 was an exciting new feature!

It seems that most clients that upgraded to Version 19 are still working with two fiscal years in their general ledger.  While there is no requirement to archive off fiscal year data, and more than two fiscal years can coexist in the general ledger, eventually users will experience some processing speed issues. If you have completed all accounting for your earliest fiscal year in your general ledger, I recommend that you consider archiving that fiscal year, taking it out of the current general ledger.  What do I mean by having completed all accounting for your earliest fiscal year?  Generally, you will have received and entered any year end adjusting entries that your outside accountant may have provided and you or your outside accountant will have compared your adjusted trial balance as of the end of the fiscal year to the accountant’s published tax returns or financial statements and determined that everything is in agreement.  If that has been done, you can archive your fiscal year accounting data with confidence!

Users may also use this process to purge jobs and their related data from the current company.  Jobs must be marked with a status of Closed or Refused, and must not have any open accounts receivable or accounts payable invoices.  Users may also purge old Service Receivable records with a status of Paid or Completed and Closed Purchase Orders not tied to Jobs as part of the archiving process.

Archiving a fiscal year is accomplished through Menu 1-6 > Archive Fiscal Year 20xx.  The process is well automated and practically runs itself.  If you are uncertain, consider printing, reading and following the Year End Checklist, a 20 page document that can be found in the Home & Resources > Product Documentation menu.  Backup your data before you get started, just in case something appears to be a problem.  If you are still uncertain, call your favorite Sage 100 Contractor Certified Consultant to give you a hand.