How to change the financial year
Description

Enter the month and year your financial year starts when you first create your company in Sage 50 Accounts. This mandatory setting runs your financial year for 12 months from the start date.

Your financial year usually starts in the same month each year. However, you may need to change it occasionally, such as aligning with a new parent company's financial year or for accounting purposes.

Cause
Resolution

How to change the financial year start date set in Sage 50 Accounts. For more detailed information about the process of shortening or extending the financial year, refer to the following guides:

How to extend the financial year

How to shorten the financial year

 NOTE: This guide doesn't run the Year End process. For information about this, see our How to complete a financial year end article.


What happens when you change the financial year start date

When you use the Financial Year option to change your financial year, the following values recalculate:

Nominal balances The monthly balance on each nominal code recalculates based on the transactions on your audit trail. You can view these balances on the Details tab of each nominal record.

We'll retain the transactional history unless you run the Clear Audit Trail routine.
Customer and supplier turnover The year to date turnover figures for your customers and suppliers recalculates based on the transactions on your audit trail. You can view these balances on the Sales or Purchases tab of each customer or supplier record.
Product monthly sales balances The monthly sales balances on the product records recalculate based on your product transactions. You can view these balances on the Sales tab of each product record.

TIP: Monthly balances don't calculate correctly up to this period if you clear the audit trail or stock transactions in the new financial year. This is because they're based on the transactions left. 

Running a financial year change removes all prior year and budget values from the nominal codes. You can't produce prior year or budget reports without this information. However, it's possible to retain this information by exporting and importing the data. Use our How do I import data? article to do to this.


Before changing your start date

  1. Click File then click Back up and, when prompted to check your data, click Yes.
  2. If you have any errors listed in your data report, resolve them first.
  3. To complete your backup, follow the on-screen prompts. Use our Back up your data guide for help with this.

Change your financial year start date

  1. Click Settings then click Financial Year and click Change.
  2. If you have checked your data and created a backup click Yes, then click Yes.
  3. Set the required financial year start month and year then click OK.
  4. Click Yes then click OK and click OK.
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