Year-End Closing in Macola Progression: Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

The year-end closing process is hectic for any accounting department. Not only is it usually done at the end of the calendar year (holiday anyone?), but it's also always coupled with the month-end and quarter-end processes. To make matters worse, many of the year-end software functions are of course done only once a year, and if your internal Macola Progression process documentation isn’t spot on, you may have trouble remembering what to do and when to do it. (Word to the wise: now might be a good time to pull out your year-end closing notes and review them. If you’re not sure how to perform a year-end close, it’s better to learn now than try to figure it out on Jan 2.) Sure it's not rocket science, but it is something of an exact science (no pun intended) and timing is often critical.

And mistakes can and will happen. Below are a few of the most common mistakes that happen during a year-end closing process in Progression and the steps that can be taken to fix them. 

Note: The examples below are complicated and we work closely with our customers when these arise. We recommend calling us early if you find yourself in these or similar situations related to year end closing processes.

Not Having a Full Nightly Backup

Regardless of the mistake that was made, the Macola database backup is the ONE SUREFIRE way to fix it. We can say this with complete assurance. There is no issue that cannot be fixed by restoring to backup, unless of course you don’t have a backup, or you’ve relied on transactional backups only. So the very first order of business to fixing any year-end issue is to make absolutely sure that you have a full backup before you begin your year-end processing and then another after you’ve successfully completed each step. Believe me, it is the insurance policy you must have.

Clearing Accumulators Multiple Times

In both the Inventory and Accounts Receivable modules, there are accumulators that must be cleared at the end of the period and at the end of the year.  If you have mistakenly cleared these accumulators twice – and it's easy to do at the end of the year since the Progression year-end process clears both the Period and the Year – you’ll need to do the following to fix it:

1. Get the last backup before the year-end processes were run, or between the first and second clearing process.
2. Restore that backup to a NEW SQL database. Do NOT restore over your live data.
3. You can then use a SQL script to update your live data with the correct values as follows:
   1. If you have a backup from between the 1^st and 2^nd clearing, copy Prior year data to Prior year;
   2. If you have a backup from before both clearings and have NOT entered any new accumulating transactions in the live company, copy the PTD, YTD and Prior Year data to the live company and rerun the Clear YTD Accumulators process
   3. If you have a backup from before both the clearings but have already entered new accumulating transactions in the live data, you must then copy the sum of the backup PTD and YTD values and copy that to the Prior Year in the live company.

Missing Prior Year Transactions

Once the Temporary Year End process is run, the System Period file is rolled forward to the new year. Thus, transactions can then be entered into the new year while any adjusting JE’s can be entered into the prior. But what if you find that you have forgotten to record a prior year transaction, one that must be entered as such into the prior year? For the sake of our example, let’s say you have to enter an AP Voucher.

1. In order to do this, you must first have all users out of AP and GL.
2. Go to System Manager/Maintain/System Periods and change the AP and GL modules back to the prior year dates. 
3. Go to GL/Processes and run the Recalculate the Account Balances
4. Enter the transaction in AP as usual, post to the GL.
5. Rerun the final trial balance and any financial reports required.
6. Once complete, repeat steps (b) and (c) but revert back to the current year.