Guided year-end close

Year-end is the call most GP customers make to a consultant every year. Ledger Doctor's year-end close checklist puts every year-end step in GP's order, checks GP before you start, gives each close its own guide, and afterward proves the new year's beginning balances tie to the year you closed.

About 60 seconds, narrated, with captions. Sample company, made-up data.

Start it

On the Close page, start a checklist for your fiscal year's last period. Ledger Doctor recognizes it as a year end from GP's fiscal calendar (a June 30 year end works too) and adds the year-end steps to the month and quarter steps.

Before the closes: checked from GP

Next year's fiscal periods exist (check K10). Nobody can post into the new year, and the GL year-end close won't run, until they do.
A retained earnings account is set in General Ledger Setup and is active (check K12).
Account posting types are right (check C38): year-end close moves profit and loss accounts by their posting type.
Inactive accounts have no balance (check C40), and every batch for the year is posted (K01 to K03).
A full backup is taken right before the closes.

Payroll and W-2s

If you run US Payroll in GP, the Health page's Payroll area checks what the payroll year-end needs:

Employees missing what their W-2 needs. Employees paid this year (in January and February, last year too) whose Social Security number is blank, isn't 9 digits, can't be a real one (it starts with 000, 666 or 9, or has 00 or 0000 in it), or is the same as another employee's (usually a rehire set up under a new ID, who would get two W-2s); whose first or last name is blank; or whose address is missing, has a blank street, city, state or ZIP code, or a US ZIP code that isn't 5 or 9 digits. Fix each on the employee's record in GP (Cards > Payroll > Employee, and its Address button). Ledger Doctor never shows the Social Security numbers themselves, only the employee and what's wrong.
Last year's payroll year-end wage file isn't created. Last calendar year has payroll checks, but GP has no year-end wage file for it, and W-2s are printed and filed from that file. Run Payroll Year-End Closing (Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Routines > Payroll > Year-End Closing) after the year's last payroll. If your W-2s are done outside GP, mark it as expected.
Unposted payroll batches (on the close checklist): payroll entered but not posted isn't in the year's history yet.

The closes, in GP's order

Payroll year-end and W-2s (calendar year), after Microsoft's year-end tax update.
Inventory year-end close, after the final count is posted.
Receivables year-end close.
Print and file 1099s, then the Payables year-end close.
Fixed Assets year-end close for every book, after the year's depreciation is posted.
General Ledger year-end close, last.

Each of those steps has a Guide button on the checklist: the exact GP windows, what to mark, what you should see, the backup first, and a sign-off before the GL close. See how guides work.

After the GL close: proved from GP

The GL close guide's Check my work first confirms GP shows the year closed, then runs check C53: every balance sheet account starts the new year where it ended, only the year's net income moved into retained earnings, and every profit and loss account starts at zero. If anything doesn't, C53 lists the accounts and amounts.

Check K11 keeps watch afterward: a year that ended more than 120 days ago and still isn't closed in the GL shows up on the dashboard. When more than one year is open, it names every open year. GP has no beginning balances after the first open year until each year before it is closed. So if you're moving to another system, its opening balance has to be rolled forward through every year that isn't closed.

Check C88 looks at every year, not just the last one closed. Each year's beginning balance should be the year before's ending balance, to the penny. Retained earnings should also take the year before's profit or loss, and profit and loss accounts should start at zero. C88 lists each account that's off, with the years, both amounts and the difference. It also catches beginning balances that showed up while the year before was still open, such as ones copied from another year. It reads each year from where GP actually keeps it, even when the year is marked closed but its totals are still with the open years. A year with no GL transactions other than beginning balances and adjustments to them, such as one before your history in GP starts, isn't compared. When General Ledger Setup has no retained earnings account, C88 says so in its own row, because GP's year-end close can't carry profit and loss forward without one.