New accounting year, year-end and Dan primo

What to do at year-end

There are very few things you need to do in Uniconta at year-end:

• Create next fiscal year
• Then firstly
• Selecting the current financial year
• Block any old periods

All the accounting such as reconciliations, write-offs, etc. we do not interfere with that, but at the end of this article there are tips on the following topics:

1. More open fiscal years
2. Subsequent postings
3. Show simulated balance
4. Primo accounts in the chart of accounts
5. Print balance sheet

Create next fiscal year

New accounting years are created under General ledger/Maintenance/Accounting year.

Select the Add fiscal year button .

The From date and To date fields are automatically populated with the first and last date of the next financial year (12 months).

Check the Current fiscal year box and select the Save button to create the year.

The other fields are described below in the sections below.

 

If you are six months into the new period, you will be asked if you want to create primary records for the new year.

Then firstly

Account for transfer of profit for the year

Before you can create primary entries, you need to define in the chart of accounts which account the profit for the year should be transferred to. You do this by selecting “Account for transferring net profit” in the System account field of the desired account in the chart of accounts.

Profit for the year from operations is usually transferred to a balance sheet account in the balance sheet under equity:

Dan primobalance

Opening transactions are formed under General ledger/Maintenance/Accounting year by selecting the Create opening balance button.

In the Balance (Text) and Retained earnings (Text) fields, you can enter the text you want to appear on your primary items, on the balance accounts and on the account to which the profit for the year is transferred, respectively.

In the Voucher number and Number sequence fields, you can select either the document number to post your opening entries with, or the number sequence to automatically retrieve a number from.

It is not necessary to fill in these fields in order to create primopostings.

If the fields are not filled in, the primary entries are posted with document no. 0 and an automatically generated text.

Example of filled fields:

When prime entries are created, the balances in your operating accounts are reset and the profit for the year is transferred to the system account “Profit and loss transfer account” and the balances in the balance sheet accounts are transferred as prime entries to the new year. If you want the opening balance of a balance sheet account to be transferred to another account, e.g. “Depreciation for the year” to “Opening depreciation”, read the section Opening accounts in the chart of accounts below.

If you have not created a system account for transferring annual results, you will be asked if you want to create one. Select a desired account from the list of accounts.

TIP! After the first time a first entry is created in a fiscal year, a new first entry is automatically created if you post in an old year. This means that you don't have to remember to create new opening entries again when you have posted subsequent entries from your accountant. The system does that for you.

NOTE! If you have made changes that require new primary balances, such as adding a primary account to accounts in the chart of accounts, the primary balances must be recalculated. This is done simply by going to the next oldest financial year and running a “Dan prime balance”. Uniconta will now recalculate current primo and primo in all subsequent years!

Dimensions! If you run with dimensions, a beginning is automatically formed per combination of the dimensions of the accounts. By default, this does not apply to all account types. For example, Primo items are not created on transferred exchange rate difference accounts, VAT accounts, retained earnings and bank accounts. You can view dimensions in the primo list by retrieving the dimension fields (ALT+F). Under Company information, you have the option to specify that the opening balance per dimension should also be created for these account types. Read more about applied dimensions to the chart of accounts here. Read more about setting up dimensions here.

Number! If 'Quantity' is turned on, the calculation is made at the beginning of the balance sheet accounts for quantity.

NB! If more than 25,000 prime records are created, only the first time prime records will be created immediately on the accounts. Subsequently, it will happen at night. A maximum of 1,000,000 prime records can be created.

See primoposter

You can then view the primary records under the Primary records button and they will also be included on various printouts, such as bank statements.

A prime balance can be printed under General ledger/ Reports / Financial statement. Read more here.

 

Selecting the current financial year

After you have created a new fiscal year and created primary records, make sure that your new fiscal year has a checkmark in the Current fiscal year field and that there is only one fiscal year that has this checkmark. Select the Edit button to change this field.

The Current fiscal year field determines the fiscal year:

• Which numbers are shown on the chart of accounts in the “Current year” and “Last year” columns
• Which opening figure appears in a bank reconciliation.

NB! If no form is made at the beginning of a new year, and you still check the box Current Accounting Year, on the new year, then no 'Primo' will appear in the bank reconciliation and the 'Sum' column will not match.

Lockout periods in old year

To avoid accidentally posting in the old fiscal year, it is recommended to block the old year.

Select the Edit button and change the Period status, year field to “Blocked”. When you set the year to Blocked or Closed, all periods in the year are considered blocked or closed.

If you only want to block or close certain months in the fiscal year, you can instead select the Period status per month button and then select Blocked in the Period status, Month field next to the months. In the field you can choose between the following:

Period status (lockout) year and months
Not active	Not active, but if you create a transaction today (cf. your PC) or before, the transaction will be accepted. Periods have this choice by default.
Open	Open for postings
Blocked	Blocked for entries, but you can change the status for the year/period.
Closed	Completely closed for transactions and you cannot change the status of the year/period at all. NOTE! A closed period can only be reopened by Uniconta support.

Why are there period statuses for both years and months?

• You can set the year to Open, but the periods to Not active. This means that you can only post entries in the periods if you post an entry as of today's date (see your PC) or earlier.
• You can set the year to Open, but previous periods to Blocked. This allows you to block entries in closed VAT periods.
• You can set the year to Blocked or Closed, so all periods in the year are blocked or closed, saving you from having to block or close each period one by one.

Why should old periods be closed?

Old periods don't necessarily HAVE to be closed, but various reasons are listed here:

• Avoid bookkeeping after handing over to the accountant: If you have handed over bookkeeping to the auditor and have started a new year, it's handy to set the periods in old year to Blocked. There's nothing worse for the auditor than you posting in a year that the auditor is closing for you at the same time.
• Avoid posting in old periods: Once you have closed a fiscal year, you can block or close the periods in the closed year to avoid posting more in the old year.
• Block same quarter previous year: If you are not closing a year, then if you have started a new quarter in a financial year, you should set the same quarter previous year to Blocked.
• Locked year: When an accounting year is closed and shipped, the year should be Locked for further posting.

More open fiscal years

You can easily post in a new year at the same time as you finish posting and reconcile the old year. In other words, you can easily run several open fiscal years in parallel. This means that you can start invoicing and posting for the new year immediately on January 1, even if you haven't received and posted all documents for the old year.

This also means that while your accountant is finalizing your financial statements, you can continue working on invoicing and bookkeeping in the new year, even if the old year hasn't ended yet.

Subsequent postings

When your accountant/bookkeeper is ready with the financial statements and any subsequent entries, these subsequent entries must be entered in the accounting journal like any other voucher.

Post the subsequent entries in the accounting journal according to the instructions. If necessary, simulate the draft before posting and then print the balance sheet as a simulated balance sheet including the draft with subsequent entries to see if the subsequent entries match the auditor's balance sheet.

Read more about printing balance sheets here.

Delete old financial years

If you want to delete an old accounting year, follow the steps below.

Note! If open records exist on customers and vendors, a message will appear: "The year cannot be deleted. There are open transactions in the customer or vendor in this accounting year," so customer and vendor transactions must be settled before deleting an old fiscal year.

An additional license is charged if more than 11 years of accounting data is stored in Uniconta. It is therefore recommended to clean up old financial years on an ongoing basis.

• Select Finance/Maintenance/Fiscal year
• Place the cursor on the oldest year and select the button Delete fiscal year. Note: Note! It is only possible to delete one fiscal year at a time. The oldest year must be deleted first and it is only possible to delete a fiscal year that is more than five years old unless the year is deleted within 15 days of a conversion.
• Type the word “delete” and select the OK button
• The fiscal year is now deleted.
• Repeat the above steps if there are multiple years to delete.

When you delete the oldest fiscal year, the financial, debtor and creditor entries in this fiscal year are also deleted. Primary entries are created automatically, so that balances in the Finance, Accounts receivable and Accounts payable modules are still the same even if entries are deleted.

If you also want to clean up your invoices, it is recommended to run a GDPR cleanup on debtors/creditors. Read more about this in this article here.

If you use the asset module and have posted asset entries in the fiscal year being deleted, these entries will be moved to the asset primary entries. This means that these records can now only be viewed under the Asset primary records button. This way it is still possible to see when the asset was acquired etc. Read more about opening posts on installations here.

Buttons on the ribbon under Fiscal year

Menu item	Menu item description
Add fiscal year	Allows you to create a new fiscal year.
Edit	Edits a generated accounting year. Among other things, change of current accounting year, whether the period is open or closed, and change of a financial year's start and end dates. Read more about this below. Note! It is only possible to delete fiscal years older than 5 years, and only if there are no transactions in the fiscal year.
Period status per month	Changing the monthly period status
Check period balances	If the sum table GLTransSum (Account sums on the chart of accounts) checks, should the sum table report errors, a post-calculation of period balances will automatically run.
Delete fiscal year / Delete postings	With this button, you can delete old fiscal years. Read more about this above in the section Delete/close down financial year.
Dan primobalance	Select this to create primopostings. Read more above.
Remove primoposts	If you delete your opening entries, new opening entries will no longer be created automatically when posting in the old year. New opening entries can always be created again, so they are automatically created again. If you start with the oldest year first, Uniconta will recalculate current opening entries in all subsequent years.
Prize entries	Here you can see the prime entries.

Correct fiscal year start and end dates for period errors

Since Uniconta automatically maintains prime records, it's easy to change the start and end date of a fiscal year, even after you've posted and created the prime date.

Uniconta will then create new opening entries and delete the old ones automatically.

If you have created the periods incorrectly, e.g. created a year in two parts, you need to make room to change the period.

Procedure:

• Go to Finance/Maintenance/Fiscal year and select the Edit button.
• The period status for the year and months must be “open” before editing the new fiscal year dates. Enter the new from and to dates and select the Save button.
• Fiscal year changes from top to bottom (latest fiscal year first).
• Fiscal year From and To dates are changed individually, first To date & Save, then change From date & Save

Example of fiscal year error with solution:

Fiscal year no. 1 (01.10.2025 - 31.12.2025, should have been 01.01.2026 - 31.12.2026):

• Correct first To date (until 31.12.2026)
• Gem
• Correct thereafter From date (to 01.01.2026)
• Gem

Fiscal year 2 (01.01.2025 - 30.09.2025, should have been 01.01.2025 - 31.12.2025):

• Right To date (until 31.12.2025)
• Gem

 

Primo accounts in the chart of accounts

On an account in the chart of accounts, you can specify Primokonto. At Dan primo, the account balance is transferred to the specified Primo account as an opening item next year. This means that you will automatically transfer your opening balance from one account to another in connection with the Dan primo run. This way you avoid having to manually post yourself out of moving, for example, balances on the year's depreciation, etc.

Here is an example from the balance sheet, fitting-out of rented premises, where the balance on the entry and exit of the year (5112 and 5113) is transferred to account 5111, balance acquisition at the beginning, as the opening item next year. After all, this year's entry and departure should not be continued and confused with next year's movements. Therefore, these accounts must be cleaned at the beginning of each year and transferred to account 5111.

The balance of 5117, the depreciation for the year, is entered as the opening item next year on account 5116, depreciation at the beginning.

 

Primary accounts and VAT accounts

When emptying VAT accounts periodically, either manually in the cash journal or through VAT settlements, you will typically not want a primary account on VAT accounts, as all VAT accounts are current balances.

If the accounts are imported from another system where VAT accounts are not normally cleared using the same method, there will often be primary accounts that may need to be changed.

Error messages regarding accounting year

Error message in "Accounting year does not exist" journal

If you get the error description "Error: Accounting year does not exist", you try to post in a year that does not exist. Change the date in the journal or create the missing accounting year.

Error message in the journal "The date is not in an open month"

If you get the error description "Error: The date is not in an open month", you are trying to post in a period that is either "Not active", "Blocked" or "Closed". Change the date in the journal to another or open the current period under General ledger / Maintenance / Accounting year. If you need to post in the future, change the status from "Not active" to "Open"

Error message in the journal "The fiscal period is not open"

If you get the error description "Error: Financial period is not open", you are trying to post in a period that is either "Blocked" or "Closed". Change the date in the journal to another or open the current period under General ledger / Maintenance / Accounting year. If you need to post in the future, change the status from "Not active" to "Open"