Sage MAS 500 – GL Year Structure

Friday, December 11, 2009 by admin

How to change General Ledger fiscal or calendar year structure

1. Modify the end dates for the periods in the Set Up Fiscal Calendar task, starting with the last fiscal year’s ending period, and then working your way up. 
2. Choose to recalculate at the prompt when saving the new fiscal year dates. The years configured in Sage MAS 500 cannot overlap; therefore, to complete this action it may be necessary to start at the first year defined in the system for that company.  Sage MAS 500 handles the movement of the balances.

Note:  The Allow Multiple Fiscal Years per Calendar check box in Set Up GL Options must be selected to allow configuration of more than one fiscal year within a 12-month period. If  the starting and ending dates of a fiscal year are changed, account for the period that falls between the previous ending date and the new starting date as another fiscal year. If this is selected, the system prompts for a one-character ID when adding years in Set Up Fiscal Years.

CAUTION: If a new year that is prior to the current first year is added, the beginning balances are recalculated and possibly rendered incorrect.  The solution is to modify the first year instead of creating a new one.

Examples of changing fiscal year:
If the starting or ending dates of the company fiscal year need to be changed, make such a change by using one of the two methods illustrated below.

Example A

Original fiscal year =12 periods ending on June 30
New fiscal year = Calendar basis (12 periods ending December 31)

Create the following fiscal years:

Fiscal Year	No. Periods	Start Date	End Date
1999	12	07/01/98	06/30/99
1999-1*	6	07/01/99	12/31/99
2000	12	01/01/00	12/31/00

Example B

Original fiscal year = Calendar basis (January to December)
New fiscal year = 12 periods starting October 1 and ending on September 30

Create the following fiscal years:

Fiscal Year	No. Periods	Start Date	End Date
1998	12	01/01/98	12/31/98
1999	9	01/01/99	09/30/99
2000	12	10/01/99	09/30/00

Changing accounting periods:
The system allows changes to the accounting period dates for a fiscal year that already contains accounting data. This capability can be used for current and future accounting periods.

When changing accounting period ending dates, the system automatically changes the historical information and processes open and closed periods to reflect the new date ranges. This recalculation of historical data occurs for all integrated Sage MAS 500 modules, including General Ledger.

Related Article

Examples of restructuring the fiscal calendar