Close the year and set budgets

The year-end close moves each income and expense balance into retained earnings and writes the opening balances of the new year. Budgets let you plan income and expenses per month and see how you are doing against them.

Before you start

• You need Set up Books and lock periods and access to every branch.
• All twelve months of the financial year must be closed, and earlier years closed first: see Close a month.

Close the year

1. Open Books → Period locks → Year-end close.
2. Type the Year in which the financial year starts and check the start date shown.
3. Select Year-end close.
4. Wait while Books prepares, posts the transfers and writes the opening balances. If it stops, select Continue year-end.
5. When it shows Year-end completed, check the opening balances listed per account and branch.

Set budgets

1. Open Books → Budgets, choose the year and select Show.
2. Under Add an annual budget, choose an income or expense Account and a Branch (or Whole business).
3. Type a positive amount for each month and select Save.
4. To start from last year, select Copy last year's budget. Tick Replace existing budgets to overwrite budgets you already entered. Select Next page until the copy is done.
5. To compare, select Budget against actual, choose From, Through and a Branch, and select Show. Download it as CSV or Excel.

Good to know

• While the year-end close runs, posting and balance reports pause. It cannot be cancelled; it finishes from where it stopped.
• Retained earnings must be an active equity account.
• Profit and loss, the overview and budget comparisons leave out the closing transfers, so the old year's profit still shows. The trial balance and general ledger include them.
• If you reopen and change a month of a closed year, its opening balances are marked out of date. Close the year again; Books posts only the difference.
• Each transfer can need approval if posting approvals are on: see Posting approvals.
• Budgets follow calendar months. Whole-business budgets are separate from branch budgets; they are not added together.
• A positive variance is good news: income above budget or expenses below it. Actual figures use posted entries.
• The financial year always starts on the first day of a month and lasts twelve months.