Orion Law Management Orion Desktop Articles General Ledger End of Year Procedures Updated January 13, 2025 20:29 Closing a year (2024) in Orion is a very simple process if you follow the correct procedures. The actual Year End Close is performed through the General Ledger Manager, End of Period Processing program. There are several procedures you should perform in each of the other modules prior to entering activity for the new year (2025). Review all of the procedures discussed below prior to proceeding with any end of year processing functions. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Time & Billing To simplify balancing, we recommend you do the following prior to entering activity for the new year (2025): Make sure all invoices for the old year (2024) have been printed and posted. You can use the Post Invoices program to view any invoices that have not yet been posted. You may also print an Invoice Listing report for unposted invoices using a date range of 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024. The report should return a message indicating no information found in the range. Make sure that all payment, credit, write off, retainer or trust transactions for the old year's (2024) business have been applied and posted. You can run the Unapplied Transaction Report to determine if all transactions have been posted. Once the above procedures have been completed, we recommend the following reports be run. Optional reports are noted and should be run only if used by your firm. If you will be entering data for the new year (2025) prior to closing the previous year (2024), you must run these reports prior to entering activity for the new year (2025). Aged Accounts Receivable Aged Work in Process Open Cost Report Timekeeper Productivity Report (optional) Any reports that you run for a typical month end closing should also be run at this time. Once you have completed the above items, you are ready to begin work for the new year. NOTE: You are not required to complete the above before you begin entering payments and running invoices for the new year (2025). However, you may not enter any adjusting journal entries or post any system created transactions for the new year (2025) in the General Ledger until you have closed the year (2024) in the General Ledger (closed Period 12). Also, you should run all Billing and Accounts Receivable Reports listed above for the year to be closed (2024) prior to entering activity for the new year (2025). Accounts Payable For Year End purposes it is recommended, but not required, that you run a Check Register for the Fiscal Year, an Open Voucher Report and a Voucher Expense Listing for Open Vouchers distributed to your Unbilled Client Advances account. In addition, any reports that you run for a typical month end closing should be run at this time. NOTE: If you want to use the Accounts Payable module (enter vouchers, adjust vouchers, pay checks or void checks) prior to closing the year in the General Ledger, you may do so. You must remember to change the AP current period and fiscal year when prompted (when first entering Voucher Entry at the beginning of the month). You may close the year prior to printing 1099 Forms as the creation of the 1099 work file is based solely on check date and has no tie to the General Ledger. General Ledger Closing the Year in the General Ledger is very similar to closing any other period. As soon as you tell the system to close Period 12 it knows to perform a year end close. Before closing period 12 you must make sure of the following: All transactions for the year you are closing as well as the previous year must be posted. If you attempt to close the year with unposted transactions, you will be alerted and the program aborted.. You can check for unposted transactions by filtering for unposted using the GL Manager Transaction Filter, running a Transaction Journal for unposted transactions or by checking the End of Period list for unapproved and/or unposted transactions. Print Financial Statements and verify that they correctly reflect the firm's financial position. In addition, we recommend you print an Account History for all accounts for all periods and a Trial Balance for Period 12. If you do not want to use all the paper an Account History requires, choose to print the report to a PDF file (choose EXPORT, PDF File). We recommend that no other processing that affects the General Ledger be occurring when you close. Users can continue to enter time, intake clients and matters, print invoices (not post), use Bill Preparation, apply accounting transactions (not post), etc. The program may alert you if others are accessing the General Ledger files and will abort the process. The following processes must be completed prior to closing the year in the General Ledger and they should not be running while General Ledger End of Year processing is in progress (the General Ledger year end procedure takes no more than 5 to 10 minutes): G/L Transaction Entry/Posting for year you are closing and previous year A/R Application Posting for year you are closing A/R Invoice Posting for year you are closing G/L Close Period (Second person accessing at same time) Check Printing/Voiding and Voucher Adjustments for year you are closing Following is a detailed explanation on using the GL End of Period Program to close the year. Year End processing is performed only when Period 12 is shown as the current period in Orion. Be sure you want to close the year (Period 12) before starting the process as it is irreversible within the Orion program. We recommend checking with your IT department to make sure you have a good back-up of your data before beginning the process. Should you require the End of Year process to be rolled back, Orion Support Personnel can handle this behind the scenes. HOWEVER, this is considered billable time and any budget information you have entered for the new fiscal year will be lost. Closing the final period of the fiscal year is somewhat more complicated for the system, although not necessarily for the operator. If End of Period Processing is initiated while the current period is 12, the system automatically runs a Year End Processing instead of the normal Month End Closing. Using information from the System File and specified accounts in your Chart of Accounts, the program zeroes out all revenue and expense accounts and updates the Retained Earnings account with the offsetting entry. The Account Type field determines how the transaction is created by Orion. To close your fiscal year in the General Ledger, click the ACTION Button and choose the End of Period option. Once the End of Period program is displayed, click the CLOSE PERIOD: 12 Button. The following screen will appear: CHECK THE INFORMATION ON THIS SCREEN VERY CAREFULLY. IF ANY INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE CHANGED, CANCEL THE CLOSING PROCESS AND GO INTO TOOLS, SYSTEM SETTINGS AND MAKE THE APPROPRIATE CHANGES. Accounts to be Closed The first section displays the range of accounts to be closed as defined in the System File. This range should begin with your first income account and end with your last expense account. If it is not correct or you are not sure about the range, immediately cancel the closing process and go into TOOLS, System Settings and make the appropriate changes. NOTE: This range should not include the account number used as the Close to Account (Retained Earnings). Total Debits, Credits and Amount to be Closed into Retained Earnings Orion will also let you know the total debit and credit amounts found in the “accounts to be closed” and the amount that will update the Retained Earnings account. The amount hitting Retained Earnings should equal the net profit/loss of the year you are closing. If the numbers displayed are not correct, close the program and double check your range of accounts to be closed. Close to Account The Close to Account is your Retained Earnings Account. This is the account Orion will hit with the balancing entry to the debits and credits created on the income and expense accounts. The number shown here should equal your YTD Net Income(Loss). You should make sure the “Close To” account is correct. If the account number displayed is not correct or the amount closed into the Close To Account is not correct, immediately cancel the closing process and go into TOOLS, System Settings and make the appropriate changes. NOTE: This account number should not fall within the range specified as the Accounts to Be Closed range. Once all information has been verified, click the CLOSE Button. Orion will begin the closing procedure. Once the closing process has completed (takes very little time), print a Trial Balance for Period 1 of the new year. Please check this report carefully. Your total debits should equal your total credits and all income and expense accounts should have a balance of zero. Should there be anything wrong with the Trial Balance, please discontinue any work in the General Ledger and call Orion Law Management Support Personnel immediately. NOTE: IF YOU RECEIVE ANY ERROR MESSAGES ONCE THE CLOSING PROCESS HAS STARTED, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RE-START THE CLOSING PROCESS BUT GIVE ORION SUPPORT PERSONNEL A CALL!!! Changes Needed After Closing the Year Orion makes it very easy to make changes to the year after you have closed it. Simply enter an adjusting journal entry using Period 12, 2024 and distribute the transaction as you would if your current year was still 2024. Upon Save and Post, Orion recognizes the transaction is for the previous year and updates the accounts accordingly all the way up to the current Period/Fiscal Year. NOTE: Because Orion makes it very easy to update the previous year, there is no need to delay closing your year while waiting for final adjustments from your accountant. Until you close your year, you cannot produce financials for the new year. Was this article helpful? Yes/No