A year-end closing involves a review of all general ledger accounts and their current status in order to complete the financial year. This ensures that you are ready to prepare the annual report in the following period.
The results of this review are called opening entries and constitute the reconciliation between assets and liabilities. The opening entries serve as the closing balance in the annual report and are carried over to the upcoming accounting period as the first entry, also called the opening entry.
You can see our video about year-end closing here.
From "Financial" select "Accounting" and then "Year-end closing runs". You are now on the list of all previous year-end closing runs in the system.
If you cannot see the menu item, you most likely do not have permission for it. Contact support.
The list gives you an overview of all performed year-end closing runs. Each row corresponds to one run.
Date: The time when the year-end closing run was performed.
User name: The name of the user who performed the run.
Department: The organizational unit (org. unit) the run is linked to.
Financial period: The accounting period that was closed by the run. Shown as a date range from and including the start date to and including the end date.
Draft entries: The number of draft entries for the year-end closing draft that have not yet been posted.
Entries: The total number of fully posted entries for the run.
See How to search in lists for more about searching and filtering.
The "Refresh" button reloads the list and is always available. Use it if you want to make sure you are seeing the latest data.
The "Select period & generate draft entries" button starts the process for a new year-end closing and is always available. Click the button to open the period selection popup.
See the section Perform year-end closing – step by step below for a complete walkthrough of the process.
The "Show entries" button opens the list of the closing entries for the selected run. The button requires that you have selected a row in the list.
From the entries list you can also export a report via the "Export report" button. The button is always available when you are on the entries list.
The "Year-end closing runs" button at the top of the entries list takes you back to the overview of runs. It is only shown when the entries list is opened as a standalone screen and not as a popup.
The "Show draft entries" button takes you to the draft entries for the year-end closing draft. From here you can review and post the draft entries when they are ready. The button is available as soon as the year-end closing draft (EndOfYearDraft) is created in the system – not only after you have performed a run in the current session.
The "Log" button shows the year-end closing log for the selected run in a text box. The button is exclusively visible to administrator users and requires that you have selected a row in the list.
Click "Select period & generate draft entries". Before the popup is shown, the system checks whether there are financial entries that fall outside the configured periods.
If there are financial entries outside the periods, a warning dialog is shown with the text "There are financial entries outside the existing periods" followed by the question "Continue?". You can choose to proceed or cancel. If you cancel, the process is stopped, and no run is carried out.
If the setting "Select department at year-end closing" is enabled in your configuration, a field for selecting a department is shown at the top of the popup.
Department: Dropdown for selecting the organizational unit the year-end closing is to be performed for. The field is required and must be filled in before you can proceed.
The "Select period" popup shows the periods you can close.
Current period: A button with the date range for the current accounting period. Click the button to select this period.
Previous periods: One button per previous period with the associated date range. Click a button to select that period.
Click the desired period to continue. If you want to cancel, click "Cancel".
If no next accounting period has been created in the system, and you have selected the current period, the system automatically shows the "Create period" popup. You must create the next period before the year-end closing can be carried out.
Current period: Shown as informational text and specifies the start and end date of the current period.
Next period: Shown as informational text and updates automatically as you specify the period length. Shows the calculated start and end dates for the next period.
Length of next financial year (months): Input field for specifying how many months the next financial year is to cover. The field is required. Minimum value is 1 month and maximum is 24 months. The default value is 12 months.
Click "OK" to create the period and continue. If you click "Cancel", the process is stopped.
When you have selected the period (and any department), the year-end closing is sent as an asynchronous background job. The system shows a "Processing" spinner while you wait. The job is polled continuously for up to 10 minutes. When the run is complete, the list updates automatically, and you receive a confirmation or an error message.
If the year-end closing cannot be carried out, the system shows an error message. The error types you may encounter are described below.
The error message "There are unposted entries for the year-end closing. Please post these and try again." is shown if unposted year-end closing entries already exist for the selected period. You must post the existing entries before you can perform a new run.
The error message "Account with incomplete setup" is shown with the account number causing the error. Check the setup of the relevant general ledger account and try again.
The error message "Deleted account" is shown with the ID of the deleted account. A deleted account cannot be used for year-end closing. Contact support for assistance in correcting the setup.
If the system cannot find a next accounting period despite the attempt at creation, an error message about this is shown. Create the next accounting period manually under the financial period setup, and then try again.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact support.
Want to know more?
Read more in these related articles:
Year-end closing entries
View and print the entries a year-end closing run has generated — result and opening entries distributed across Closing (Opening/Closing).
Accounting - Year-end closing runs
Accounting - Year-end closing runs
Financial periods (financial year)
Create, edit and manage your financial periods (financial years) in Sapera. Learn about division into sub-periods, marking of the current period and validation of dates.
