Nominal Ledger Help
Open Period Accounting is an optional feature that allows you to control whether your Nominal Ledger accounting periods are open or closed for new postings. Accounting periods can be kept open as long as necessary but are normally closed once management accounts have been presented for the financial year. If Open Period Accounting is used, each transaction that is posted in the application has a Nominal Ledger transaction date, which determines the accounting period that is posted to and the period name that is displayed at the time of posting. The period that is posted to can be the current Nominal Ledger period, a previous Nominal Ledger period, or a future Nominal Ledger period as long as the period is open. You also do not need to change the application's system date because the Nominal Ledger transaction date determines which period is updated.
Open Period Accounting works with both the Real Time Update method and the batch transfer method of updating the Nominal Ledger.
An option on the Company Profiles form controls whether Open Period Accounting is used.
Feature |
Available In Opera II ? |
Available in Opera 3 ? |
|---|---|---|
Create financial calendars for the previous year, the current year and for future years. |
No. Only the current financial year can be set up. |
Yes. You can create financial calendars for the previous year, current financial year and for up to three future years. |
Post to the Nominal Ledger without needing to change the application's system date to be in the current Nominal Ledger period. |
No. The system date must be in the current Nominal Ledger period. |
Yes. When posting a transaction to any period in the Nominal Ledger, a Nominal Ledger transaction date is used to update the ledger rather than the system date. |
Post to future Nominal Ledger periods in the Nominal Ledger and from the Sales Ledger, Invoicing, Sales Order Processing, Purchase Ledger, Stock Control, Cashbook, modules. |
No. Future periods cannot be posted to. |
Yes. You can post transactions to future open periods in the current financial year or future financial years without needing to change the application's system date. |
Post to previous Nominal Ledger periods in the Nominal Ledger and from the Sales Ledger, Invoicing, Sales Order Processing, Purchase Ledger, Stock Control, Cashbook, modules. |
No. Only the final period in the previous year can be posted to. |
Yes. You can post transactions to previous open periods in the current financial year from all modules without needing to change the application's system date. You can also post to open periods in the previous financial year from the Nominal Ledger. |
Identify periods by a description as well as a period number and year. |
No. You cannot use descriptions for periods. |
Yes. Each period in the financial calendar has a short description to identify it. |
Correct journals posted in error. |
No |
Yes. Journals that were posted to the current or future financial years from the Nominal Ledger can be modified. You can change the account, cost centre, project or department for each journal line. You can also reverse the complete journal posting and re-post the journal to any open period in the current or future year. If you do not use Open Period Accounting you can only modify journals posted to the current financial year. |
Open Period Accounting uses a calendar where you define your financial years with up to a maximum of 24 periods in each year. You can define a financial calendar for this year, last year, and three future years. Each year has description, a year end date and the required number of periods. Each period in the financial year has a start date, a period description that is displayed throughout the application, and an indicator that controls whether transaction postings are allowed in the period. In each financial calendar you can choose whether an individual accounting period is open, closed or blocked for postings.
If you start your financial year with say 12 periods but need to change it during the year, you can change the number of periods up to a maximum of 24 periods. You can change the number of periods for the current and future financial years. Previous financial years cannot be changed.
You can control whether your operatives can post transactions to each period in:
The previous financial year (from the Nominal Ledger only)
The current financial year
Up to three future financial years.
Periods can be set to 'Open', 'Closed' or 'Blocked' for each of these modules:
Nominal Ledger (and Cashbook)
Sales Ledger (and Invoicing/Sales Order Processing)
Purchase Ledger (and Purchase Order Processing)
Stock Control (and Bill of Materials)
Transactions cannot be posted to periods that are either blocked or closed. You can think of a blocked period as an interim status that prevents postings but can easily be opened if required by anyone who has access to the Financial Calendar form, say because a transaction was missed and needs to be posted to that period. A closed period is a more permanent status but it can also be opened if required. However only the 'ADMIN' user can open a closed period.
When you run the Period End command in the Nominal Ledger you can choose to set the status for each module to 'Blocked' for the current period. When you run the Year End command you can choose to set the status for all periods in the financial year that you are closing to 'Closed'.
The Set Options form is used to retain the number of periods and current period in the current year, and the current year value.
You can control whether your operatives can post transactions to each period in:
The previous financial year (from the Nominal Ledger only)
The current financial year
Up to three future financial years.
Posting |
Associated Period's Balance |
Year To Date Balance |
Period To Date Balance |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
To the current Nominal Ledger period |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
All account balances are updated when the transaction is posted. |
To a future period in this financial year |
Yes |
No |
No |
The Nominal Ledger Period End command will update the Year To Date and Period To Date account balances when the transaction becomes current. |
To a previous period in this financial year |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
The transaction's period balance and the year to date balance are updated. The Period To Date balance is not updated. |
To the first period in a future financial year |
No |
No |
No |
The Nominal Ledger Year End command will update the associated Period, Period To Date and Year To Date account balances when the financial year becomes current. |
To a later period in a future financial year |
No |
No |
No |
The Nominal Ledger Year End command will update the associated Period account balance when the financial year becomes current. The Nominal Ledger Period End command will update the Period To Date and Year To Date account balances when the transaction becomes current. |
To a period in a previous financial year |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes* |
If the account is a balance sheet account, a posting is also made to the first period of this financial year using the same accounts. If the account is a profit and loss type, a posting is also made to the first period of this financial year using the Profit and Loss account. The Period To Date balance is updated only if the Nominal Ledger is in the first period of the current year. |