Sage 50 US Year End Portal - Financial Year End Checklist

Need assistance completing your Year End? Prefer to have someone complete the process with you to reduce downtime? Refer to Sage Expert Services (SES) for help.

Complete all transactions for the year

Before you run your final financial reports, you must complete all transactions for that year.

Reconcile general ledger accounts to bank statements

You can’t reconcile accounts (for example, checking or credit card accounts) whose bank statements are dated in a closed fiscal year. Therefore, it’s recommended that you reconcile these accounts before closing the fiscal year.

If you choose not to reconcile accounts using previous bank statements, the items will be available to clear in the new fiscal year. However, the account reconciliation will be difficult to manage and audit.

Print year-end reports to keep a historical copy of your information

Print reports to keep a historical hard copy of your accounting information (depending on your company requirements, not all these reports may be needed). These reports will act as a hard copy of your historical Sage 50 information. They can be helpful during audits.

List of recommended reports

• Accounts Receivable—Sales Journal, Cash Receipts Journal, Customer Ledgers, Customer Statements, Aged Receivables, Taxable/Exempt Sales, Invoice Register
• Accounts Payable—Check Register, Aged Payables, Vendor Ledger, Purchase Order Journal, Purchase Journal, 1099 forms
• General Ledger—General Ledger Trial Balance, General Journal, General Ledger report
• Financial Statements—Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement
• Payroll— Payroll Check Register, Quarterly Earnings Report, Yearly Earnings Report, Payroll Tax Reports, State Quarterly and Yearly Forms and Federal Forms (940, 941, W-2, and W-3).
• Inventory—Inventory Valuation Report, Item Costing Report, Inventory Unit Activity Report, Inventory Profitability Report
• Jobs—Job Ledgers, Job Profitability Report, Job Register

Review reports and make adjustments as necessary

Usually in the last accounting period of a fiscal year, you need to make adjusting entries. These might include the following:

• Write off customer bad debts
• Record old outstanding checks reentered into the bank account as miscellaneous income
• Verify that fixed-asset purchases and dispositions have been properly recorded
• Record depreciation expenses
• Record a physical inventory count and compare to Sage 50 quantity on hand
• Manage outstanding notes payable and receivable items and recording- or adjusting-interest expense or income

Once you've made any necessary adjustments, you're ready to begin closing the fiscal year. The type of adjustment required depends on where in Sage 50 the correction needs to be made.

• General ledger adjustments are entered in the General Journal Entries window
  (Click Tasks, General Journal Entry)
• Inventory adjustments are entered in the Inventory Adjustments window
  (Click Tasks, Inventory Adjustments)
• Payroll adjustments can be made through Payroll Entry
  (Click Tasks, Payroll Entry)
• Accounts receivable adjustments can be made through Sales/Invoicing or Receipts
  (Click Tasks, Sales/Invoicing or Tasks, Receipts)
• Accounts payable adjustments can be made through Purchases or Payments
  (Click Tasks, Purchase Receive Inventory or Tasks, Payments)

After you have made the necessary adjustments, reprint any affected reports so that you have a correct copy.

How do I make adjustments to general ledger accounts?
Error: "At least one damaged transaction has been found in account [number] in the period beginning [date]...."
What is the Internal Accounting Review?
How to run Data Verification
How do I run the Internal Accounting Review?
Balance of my Retained Earnings account is incorrect after closing the Fiscal Year
General Ledger Trial Balance or Balance Sheet is out of balance
Sage Expert Services (SES)