Money and the account

Closing a month, and the year

Menu: Money → Periods · Reporting → Reports → Books → Cash flow Who: the owner, and anybody the owner gives May read the books to

Once your accountant has filed a month, nothing should be able to move it. This chapter covers three things that go with that: closing a month so it stays as it was filed, the financial year and what happens to profit at its end, and the two reports you read at the end of a period — cash flow, and any statement set beside the period before.

It is all part of the books. You need The books in your package and a start date set (see The books chapter) before any of it does anything.

Closing a month

Open Money → Periods. You see the twelve months of one financial year, each with where it stands: Closed, Open, Not over yet, or Before the books began.

Press Close on a month and Sellify first checks it. Some checks stop the close and some are only warnings.

These stop it:

Every day you traded in that month has been closed at every branch. A month cannot be filed while one of its days is still open. Sellify lists the days that are still open.
The month before it is closed. Months close in order. You cannot file May while April is still open.
The month is over. Its last business day has finished at every branch.

These are warnings. You may still close, but read them first:

Lines on a bank statement in that month that nobody has answered yet.
Bills that landed in Other expenses because nobody gave their expense head an account.
More than a few paisa sitting in the rounding account. That usually means something is being worked out wrong.

What a closed month refuses

Nothing may be posted into a closed month. That means no sale, no void, no correction, no manual journal and no stock count dated inside it. The screen tells the person trying why, and names the month.

A sale rung on a till that was offline and uploaded later is the one that catches people out. It keeps the day it was rung. If that day's month has been filed since, the upload is refused and the sale waits on the till's outbox screen for a manager. Close a month only once every till has sent what it holds.

You also cannot reopen a day inside a closed month. Reopen the month first. That is on the record too.

Reopening a month

Press Reopen and give a reason. The reason is required, and every reopen is recorded with who did it and when. Months reopen in reverse order: you cannot reopen March while April is still closed.

Correcting a closed month without reopening it

Most mistakes in a filed month should not reopen it. On the Journal screen, Reverse on an entry from a closed month offers Reverse into the first month that is still open. The mistake stays where it was filed. The correction lands in a month nobody has signed yet.

A reminder, and only for the books

Your dashboard shows a reminder when a month has been over for a while and nobody has closed it. By default that is 15 days. Change it with Remind to close a month after (days) under Setup → Settings → Accounting, or set it to 0 to turn it off. Only people who can read the books see the reminder.

The financial year

Sellify's financial year starts on 1 July by default. To change it, set Financial year starts in month under Setup → Settings → Accounting. Once any month has been closed, the start month and the books' start date are frozen. Changing either would move a year that has already been filed.

Nothing is posted at year end. There is no closing journal to run and nothing to forget. Sellify simply reads the books for the year you ask about:

The income statement for a year shows that year's income and expenses only.
The balance sheet shows two equity lines. Retained earnings brought forward is everything earlier years earned. Profit for the year is what this year has earned so far.
The trial balance carries last year's earnings as one line, so this year's income and expense accounts start from nothing.
In the general ledger, an income or expense account starts each year from nothing. A line at the top says what was carried to retained earnings.

If you are handed audited figures for last year that differ from Sellify's, type the difference as a journal against Retained earnings. That is the one head a year-end correction goes to.

Cash flow

Reporting → Reports → Books → Cash flow shows where the money came from and where it went over the range, in three parts:

Operating: selling, buying, paying bills and paying staff.
Investing: fixtures, equipment, a van.
Financing: the owner putting money in or taking it out, and loans.

It starts with the cash in hand when the range begins and ends with the cash in hand when it ends. That closing figure is the same as the cash on the balance sheet for that day. Money moved from the till into the petty cash box is not on this report at all, because the shop is no richer or poorer for it.

Each account says which of the three parts it belongs to. Sellify fills that in for the accounts it creates. For a head you wrote yourself, open it on the Chart of accounts and pick one.

Compared with the period before

The income statement, the balance sheet and cash flow each have a Compare with box:

The period before puts the stretch just before the range beside it. A month is compared with the month before, and a quarter with the quarter before.
The same period last year puts the same dates a year earlier beside it.

The second column is always last, so a percentage never sits next to the wrong figure. If the books had not begun yet in the earlier period, that column shows a dash rather than a nought. A nought would claim nothing happened, when really nothing was recorded.

The exports carry the second column too.

What this does not do

No closing journal, as explained above. The year is read, not swept.
No budget to compare against. The second column is always a real earlier period.
No per-branch closing. A month is closed for the whole company, because a company keeps one set of books.