Fiscal Periods and Fiscal Years

A fiscal year is typically divided into 12 monthly fiscal periods. In Business Central, you can have two fiscal years open at the same time. You cannot create a third fiscal year if there are two fiscal years open.

To close a fiscal year, you must close the accounting periods within that year.

You can only reopen a closed accounting period if the period falls within an open fiscal year. For more information, see Close Years. You cannot reopen a closed fiscal year.

Closing Fiscal Periods and Fiscal Years

After a fiscal year is complete, you must close the accounting periods within that fiscal year. This is to ensure that general ledger entries are not posted for that period. For more information, see Fiscally Close Accounting Periods.

A fiscal year can be closed if all of the following criteria are met:

The posting dates on the User Setup page and the General Ledger Setup page do not fall within the year that you are closing. For more information, see Specify Posting Periods and Understanding the General Ledger and the COA.
The fiscal year has been closed using the Close Year function on the Accounting Periods page. For more information, see Closing Years and Periods.
All the unposted journal lines for the year have been posted or deleted.
All closing entries are up to date.

When you close a fiscal period, the earliest open fiscal period is closed. The Allow Posting From field on the General Ledger Setup page is updated with the start date for the next open period, if the existing date in this field is not already a later date. If the Allow Posting To field on the General Ledger Setup page is within the closed period, then the value in the Allow Posting To field is updated with the end date for the first open fiscal period. For more information, see Understanding the General Ledger and the COA.

At the end of the year, you must do the following:

Close the fiscal year using the Close Year function.
Generate a year-end closing entry.
Post the year-end closing entry, along with the offset equity account entries.
Close the fiscal year using the Fiscally Close Year function.

Fiscal Periods and Fiscal Years

Closing Fiscal Periods and Fiscal Years

See Also