• Year End Close
  • Year End Close Options
  • Retained Earnings Account Distribution
  • Perform a Year End Close
  • Select Items to Roll Forward

Perform a Year End Close

At the end of the fiscal year, you can perform a year end close on your Working Papers file to carry forward the closing balances into a new file. The closing year balances become the prior year balances in the new file.

By performing a year end close, you can roll forward the following information from the file:

• Documents and attached issues (that are set to Roll Forward)
• Closing and custom balances
• Budgets and forecasts

Prerequisites:

• If the file is protected, you must have the Year End Close and Roll Forward group right.
• You should perform a Cleanup prior to a year end close to ensure that the next year file only contains necessary information.
• You must synchronize and delete all child copies of the file before performing a year end close.
• If you intend to roll forward into a file with the same name as the file you are closing, the new file will overwrite the closed file. We suggest that you back up the file prior to closure.

To perform a year end close:

1. In Working Papers, open the file that you want to close.
2. On the ribbon, click Engagement | Year End Close. The Year End Close and Roll Forward dialog displays.
3. In the File to be Used for Next Year group, select the location where you want to create the next year file, then assign the new file a name. If you're closing into the same file or an existing file, click Browse and select the file.
4. Select the applicable Roll Forward Options and content to Include in the Next Year File. Click OK.

The file is closed and a new file is created. In the new file, you should verify that the reporting dates have been incremented correctly and that the opening balance agrees with the prior year closing balance.

Perform a Multiple Year End Close

If you want to work on the next year file but the prior year file is not yet complete, you can perform a multiple year end close. Performing a multiple year end close after the initial year end close will update the prior year balance in the client file.

Note: You cannot perform a multiple year end close on SmartSync or Cloud files unless you clear the synchronization information from the parent file first.

To perform a multiple year end close:

1. Perform a year end close on the prior year file to create the next year file.
2. When the prior year file is complete, update the next year file by performing a year end close again on the prior year file.
3. In the Year End Close and Roll Forward dialog, in the File to be Used for Next Year group, Browse for the next year file.
4. Select the applicable Roll Forward Options and content to Include in the Next Year File. Click OK.

The changes made to the prior year file roll forward into the next year file.

Perform a Bulk Year End Close in Tracker

You can perform a bulk year end close on multiple Working Papers files using CaseWare Tracker. Each file can be assigned unique naming conventions, file paths, and year end close and roll forward options, so you can ensure your new files are properly prepared for the next year.

To perform a bulk year end close in Tracker:

1. In Tracker, click the applicable View to display a list of your organization's Working Papers files.
2. Select a file, or hold CTRL on your keyboard and click each of the files where you want to perform a year end close.
3. Right-click one of the selected files, then click Year End Close.
4. A prompt displays for each file where you intend to perform the year end close. Click Yes or Yes to All to proceed. The Year End Close and Roll Forward dialog displays.

5. In the file list on the left-hand side of the dialog, select a file to modify the properties of the year end close. Complete the options as required.

   Option	Description
   File to be Used for Next Year	File: Manually change the file name for the next year file. Folder: Manually change the file path where the next year file will be created.
   New File Name	Use the operating name from the engagement properties: Automatically generate the next year file name based on the operating name in the file's Engagement Properties. Use the client number from the engagement properties: Automatically generate the next year file name based on the client number in the file's Engagement Properties. Keep the current file name: Use the existing file name for the next year file.
   Include the Year End Date in the File Name	Prepend the file name with the year end date: Attach the year end date to the beginning of the next year file name. Append the file name with the year end date: Attach the year end date to the end of the next year file name. Do not include the year end date: Do not attach the year end date to the next year file name.
   Year End Close and Roll Forward Options	Publish the next year file: Select to publish the next year file to a SmartSync Server. Customize: Specify the year end close options to apply to the next year file. Publish to ...: Select the SmartSync Server to publish the next year file(s).

6. If you are performing the year end close on multiple files, select the next file from the file list and modify the year end close properties as required. Repeat for each file.
7. Click Start to begin the year end close process.

The files are closed and a new files are created. In the new files, you should verify that the reporting dates have been incremented correctly and that the opening balance agrees with the prior year closing balance.