Tips to Successfully Close Out the Year with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

It's the most wonderful time of the year for controllers and accountants the world over-year end.

And as year-end approaches for most companies, there are a number of steps you need to take to successfully close out the accounting and inventory periods for the fiscal year.

Lee Weiner, Board of Advisors at Dynamics NAV User Group and CFO at Bradshaw Group, offered some tips to members of the group to help the process run smoothly. Weiner shared some best practices associated with year-end closing processes with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0.

Create a new year

One of the most important things to remember is that you can't close out the current year until you create a new year.

To do that in Dynamics NAV, take the following actions: Financial ManagementàGeneral LedgeràPeriodic ActivitiesàFiscal YearàAccounting Period and click on the button at the bottom of the page that says "create year." This will take you to a screen so you can set the correct dates for you new fiscal year. After you do that click on the "OK" button. That will create the new fiscal year periods.

Now you can close the fiscal year you're currently in by clicking "close year." The following message will appear "Do you want to close the fiscal year." Once you click yes  the fiscal year will be closed.

You can still post general ledger entries to the closed year, Weiner said. When you post in a closed year, you mark the entries as prior year entries. However, Weiner cautioned that you shouldn't close a year before you're comfortable that all your sub-ledger entries ...