Transfer Last Year G/L Transactions

 

 

Selecting from the main menu- Reports/General Ledger/Transfer Last G/L Transactions, will display the window depicted in fig 1 below.  This program will encourage General Ledger users to perform the General Ledger Year End Close procedure at the appropriate time and not delay the decision to do so. It does this by eliminating any concern for the effort required to account for delayed or adjusting General Ledger transactions that actually belong in the previous year’s database. The user may perform the General Ledger Year End Close and then begin entering both previous year business transactions and current year business transactions into the New (current) Year’s database as necessary. This program will reverse out any previous year G/L Transactions posted to the current General Ledger, move them to the previous year’s database, and adjust the beginning G/L Account balances and the Retained Earnings Account balance in the current year’s database appropriately.

G/L Transfer fig. 1

 

Transaction Transfer Procedure

Using this Cross Transfer program is a simple process. The reason it appears lengthy is due in part to the inclusion of graphic illustrations. In the following example the G/L Year End has been run and the "previous year" is referred to as the 2003 database and the "current year" is referred to as the 2004 database.

  1. Make sure any previous year’s transactions have been posted to the General Ledger as this program will not search for pending G/L Transactions.

  2. Selecting from the main menu- Reports/General Ledger/Transfer Last G/L Transactions, will cause the window depicted in fig 1 above to be displayed.

  3. Select Retrieve. Any and all G/L transactions with the previous year’s date will then appear in the list box. Refer to fig. 2. The first two records represent the recording of a simple A/P Invoice and the last four rows a simple A/R Invoice. Both business transactions were entered with Invoice Dates in the year 2003.

 

G/L Transfer fig. 2

 

 

  1. Select the Update Beginning Balances check box if you would like the beginning balances in the current database updated by the adjusting entries that will be posted to the previous year's database. Most if not all users will check this box unless there is a specific reason not to.

  2. Select Post. The posting process is complete when the transactions are no longer showing in this list box .

  3. Below Fig 3 depicts a G/L Transaction Report showing those accounts affected by the previous step. Notice that the Source Codes have been modified so that anyone will know these are soon to be selected by the Cross Transaction program. The new Source Codes also enables the Transaction Transfer program to keep track of these transactions. The convention for renaming the source codes is listed below for the curious user:

    bullet

    AP => LP

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    AR => LR

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    PR => LX

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    GL => LG

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    JC => LC

G/L Transfer fig. 3

 

  1. G/L Transactions have been placed into the current year's GL Transaction View as illustrated in fig 4.

 

G/L Transfer fig. 4

 

  1. Post these reversing transaction to the General Ledger using the familiar G/L Transaction Posting program.

  2. Fig 5 displays a G/L Transaction Report to illustrate both the original and the reversing transactions just posted.

 

G/L Transfer fig. 5

 

  1. The Beginning G/L Account Balances and Retained Earnings G/L Account balance in the current database have already been adjusted automatically for the user even though technically we have not performed step 14 as yet. In fact this brings the us to an important point that should be made: G/L postings made to the previous year's database do not trigger changes in the current year's database.

  2. Close any Active Accounting windows or forms but do not quit out of Active Accounting entirely.

  3. Go to the main Active Accounting menu and select- File/Open Data *.mdb. If this menu option is grayed out and not selectable, it is likely there is still a window or view still open in the current database (2004). If so, the system thinks you are still using the current database and will not allow you to open any other database until any open views or windows are closed.  This doesn't include having to close 'UDS Tools' bars.

  4. Now using the window titled Select from Recent Databases, select from the available list or if the user does not see the previous year's database name within this short list, select the more option so that the Open Data Database (*.MDB) window will appear. Use this window to 'browse' to where the user has saved the previous year’s database and Open it to run in Active Accounting. The user will now be using the previous year's database (2003).

  5. Select from the main menu- File/View/General Ledger/GL Transactions. Fig 6 is an example of what the user will see. The G/L Transactions showing in the G/L Transaction View window are the G/L transactions ready to be posted to the 2003 General Ledger. You might recall that these are the transactions previously (step 5.) reversed out of the current (2004) year's database. These transactions can be deleted or modified before posting G/L to G/L but there would have to be a particular reason for doing so.

 

G/L Transfer fig. 6

 

  1. This Completes the process but keep in mind this program can be run multiple times if necessary to process delayed or adjusting entries.

 

Payroll users should not let the Transaction Transfer program influence how they presently use payroll or 'close' the payroll year.

 

In general practice most users will probably want to enter any delayed, previous year transactions into the current database so that in any situation where history is accumulated, the current database will carry forward that history for you. However, the user may enter the same previous year's transaction into both the previous year's database and the current year's database if they desire to have history exist in both databases. If doing so, please remember not to post the same G/L Transactions to the previous year's General Ledger twice. This can avoided by deleting what would result in duplicate entries from the G/L Transaction View (fig. 6) or entering the history into the previous database with G/L Posting Active unchecked. We would think the former rather than the latter would be the more easy choice.

 

 

End of Transaction Transfer Help Topic