Financial Years (FY) divide the books into accounting periods. Every journal entry belongs to exactly one FY and must be dated inside it. Financial Years are managed by administrators on the Finance Master page.

Creating a Financial Year

• The first year for a company can start on any date, but choose carefully: opening balances are posted at that start date, and nothing can be posted before it. The end date must be after the start date.

• Every following year must start on the day after the previous year's end — no gaps, no overlaps.

• The company's base currency must be set before the first year can be created.

Keep the current year and the next year created ahead of time; documents dated after the last year's end cannot post until a year covering them exists.

Posting Rules

• Journal entries — manual or automatic — require an open Financial Year that covers the entry date. There is no fallback: a bill dated in a year that is closed (or does not exist) will refuse to post until the date or the years are corrected.

• Entries in a closed year can never be added, changed or reversed. This also means a document whose entry sits in a closed year cannot be un-finalised; correct it with a credit note or a manual entry in the current year.

Closing a year

Closing is the formal year-end. Before a year can be closed:

• Its end date must have passed.

• The next Financial Year must already exist.

• All earlier years must already be closed.

• The chart must have a postable Retained Earnings account (Special code RE).

What the close does, in one transaction:

• Calculates the year's balance of every income and expense account.

• Posts a Year-End Closing journal entry dated the last day of the year, bringing every income and expense account to zero and transferring the net profit or loss to Retained Earnings. For foreign-currency income/expense accounts, the foreign-currency balances are cleared as well.

• Marks the year closed. The closing entry appears in the journal like any other entry.

A year can only be closed once, and the close is idempotent — if it is interrupted, running it again completes safely without duplicating the closing entry.

Recommended year-end checklist

• Post or resolve every draft/unfinalised invoice, bill, receipt and payment dated in the year.

• Reconcile bank and cash accounts.

• Run FX Revaluation as at the year-end date so foreign-currency accounts are stated at closing rates.

• Review the Trial Balance as at the year end — it must show no difference.

• Create the next Financial Year.

• Close the year, then check the Balance Sheet: Retained Earnings should now include the year's result and the P&L accounts should be zero.