Fiscal Closing

Fiscal Closing is the process of closing one set of financial books at the end of the current fiscal year and opening a new set of books for the coming fiscal year.

  1. To begin fiscal closing, make sure that the following are set as you want them for your library:
    1. Confirm (or set) your method of fiscal closing.
    2. Set the appropriate permissions for staff who perform fiscal closing.
    3. Select the report options that you want to be available during the fiscal closing.
  2. Review the Summary of Fiscal Closing Methods to help you get started.

Confirming Your Method of Fiscal Closing

To confirm your method of fiscal closing, choose Help | About from the menu bar. The method of fiscal closing currently set for your library appears at the bottom of the resulting dialog box. If you want to change the method for your library, see the Fiscal Year Closing Acquisitions option.

Briefly, the three methods of fiscal closing are:

Method 1
The library keeps only one set of funds (i.e., books). If your library makes only minimal distinction between fiscal years, you should use this method. It carries over encumbrances from one fiscal year to the next in the same set of funds. Consequently, as you receive orders from previous years, the system posts those expenditures and disencumbrances in the current fund balances.
Method 2
The library keeps one set of funds for the current year and a second set of funds for the previous year. At year end, you change the fund code in outstanding order records to a previous year fund code. In some cases, several current year funds are combined into one previous year fund. You also move outstanding encumbrances to previous year funds. As you receive the previous year's orders, the system posts those expenditures and disencumbrances in the previous year fund balances.
Method 3
The library builds an entirely new set of funds for the new fiscal year. With this method, all existing fund assignments and fund balances remain intact and are not affected by the change in fiscal years. For the new year, a new set of funds is created. This method requires that the library have enough space in its system for two or three years of funds. It also requires that the old funds eventually be deleted from the system, and a new set of account reports be input into the system each year.

Setting Permissions

To enter the Fiscal Close function, you must be assigned permission 405 (Fiscal Close). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

You also must be assigned permissions to run the individual steps within Fiscal Close, as follows:

Selecting Report Options

To select the report options that you want to be available during fiscal close:

  1. Choose Admin | Settings.
  2. Choose the Funds settings tab.
  3. In the Options for Fiscal Close section, select each of the reports that you want to be available: Statistics, Management (Fund) Reports, and Vendor Statistics.