I did a "Close Income/Expense Accounts" for FY2010, and I printed out the Trial Balance to ensure all accounts were closed. There were 4 income accounts that did not close because they are set at "balance sheet" instead of "income statement". I tried to switch it, but it won't allow me. What do I do next?

Hi Arlene,

When you tried to change from Balance Sheet to Income Statement type, how exactly did the system stop you ?

Were you using "edit" accounts ?

This may be a situation where assistance from your dealer is indicated; I have seen this problem before and it can be a bit tricky.

Arlene:

Unfortunately this is not an easy problem to fix.

Did you just do this today? If so, and you have a backup, you could restore the data, correct the accounts, and then re-do the year end.

If you would like further assistance please call us in Winnipeg at (204) 944-0302 or toll free at 1.888.534.4344.

Hi Sandra

Just to second Doug's advice, in even stronger words...

Your best bet is to restore from a backup of the data from before the year-end. Also, you will be best off first unposting any batches that contain activity to the four offending accounts, so that they are virgin accounts, then changing the account types, and finally reposting the batches.

Otherwise, you are asking for major trouble down the road.

Steve

Well, I loaded my backup. Yet it still says I cannot change it because it might have a balance in prior year (it does not), current year (it does), or future year (it does not).

Exact error message is:
This account has an Opening balance or a Closing amount in a Prior Vear, the Current Vear or Next Vear.
The account type cannot be changed.

Can I just do a Journal Entry into an account that is an Income Statement, and then those accounts would have a zero balance and then could I just delete them? There are 4 accounts.

Hi Arlene,

If you zero out the closing balance by transferring the amounts to an income statement account, you might then be able to change the account type. It is unlikely you would want or be able to delete the accounts because those accounts still have activity.

Steve's advice is the cleanest, safest approach, but this might be a bit unmanageable dependent on activity volume.

If you want to take a try with the "shortcut" approach, make sure you have a current backup before you test it.

Good luck Arlene.

Hi ArleneW

Just doing a journal entry won't work. The account cannot have any activity at all in order to safely change the account type.

You need to unpost any batches that contain activity first.

Steve

A number of our clients have had a similar experience.

We think the problem started when the Next Fiscal Year process was run. I believe that this is when the "Opening balance or a Closing amount in a Prior Year, the Current Year or Next Year" entries are generated by GL 9.x, based on the Account Type, at that time.

This is notably different from Accpac Plus for DOS, which did not have the improved benefits of a Soft Year-end, but only used this setting when the "Close Year Function" was run. Personally, I would like to see Adagio display a warning when "Create Next Fiscal Year" is selected. After all, historically, for MANY years, Accpac Plus for DOS users have checked the Account Type as part of the Year End Process immediately prior to running the "Close Year" function.

If this is your first Year-end with the wrong Acct Types, you might be able to unpost the GL Batches posted after the "Create Next Fiscal Year" process was run, Restore from the prior Backup, Correct the Account Type, Create your Next Year and Repost the Unposted Batches accordingly.

Hope this helps, good luck!

All you need to do is set up the Account groups and enforce them and the DIC will complain about the improperly assigned account types before any year end process is done.