Finance Fiscal Year End

Discussed in these pages are suggested procedures for planning and processing month end and year-end reconciliations and closing using PowerSchool standard reports. These suggestions are to be used as guidelines, not as requirements. Click, Drag and Drill reports may be substituted for these reports. Neither is it presumed that this is an exhaustive list of year-end activities. Each district must determine actual month and year-end procedures based on such things as structural setup (GLUPGN), accounting basis (cash vs. accrual), and subsystem interfaces (GLUTSPSI).

Period End Procedures

The following sections will describe in some detail the processes used to keep the General Ledger in balance on an ongoing basis and preparing the General Leger for the beginning of the new fiscal year. The tutorial will also discuss the different methods to affect the old fiscal year transactions stored in the database. The processes that will be covered in this tutorial are:

• Reconciliations — Balance Sheet cash related and subsystem related control accounts. General Ledger accounts which post from sub-ledgers, including Accounts Payable, Cash in Bank, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets and Payroll. In addition, the Purchasing and Encumbrance module and their relation to the Accounts Payable and Cash accounts.
• Subsystem Cleanup — Discuss the procedures to identify and close out old purchase orders and outstanding encumbrances and handling the encumbrance close out and balance forward options.
• Accounts Payable Year-End Accruals — Discuss procedures to handle prior year posting options.
• New Year Opening Balances — Creating and running a Recurring Calculation to create beginning Balance Sheet entries for the new fiscal year. 
• Purging Prior Year History — Discuss purging utilities for prior year history to meet disk space recovery needs.

Fiscal Year-End Timeline

There are several processes that must be completed for a successful year end close. The graphic below is a pictorial of some of the major tasks that should be scheduled and completed beginning sometime around 60 days before year end and finalizing as late as 90 days after year end. It is important to plan and schedule the district's activities to ensure that all the necessary steps are completed when they need to be completed. The following sections of this tutorial will discuss in greater detail how to accomplish the many tasks of a fiscal year end.

Reconciliation Cycle

Reconciliation Report Relationships

The following display shows the reports to be run and the relationships between the modules for reconciliation purposes (letter codes represent relationships). This display will be used in each section to highlight the reports to assist with understanding. Some reports are run, and reviewed, individually (no comparisons).