Best Practices for Month End Close & Reconciliation

1. GL > Programs > GL Month End Close:
   • How to find a missing batch
   • Go to HQ > Programs > HQ Batch Control
   • Enter mm/yy
   • Click on Grid
   • Click on the column Status – will sort by status
   • Scroll to the stop to see if there are any unprocessed batches
     
2. Cash Management module:
   • After monthly activity is complete, open CM statement and account for items that cleared your bank
   • Perform Bank Reconciliation
     • Close the statement in CM Statement Control:
       • CM > Programs > Close CM Statement
       • Print CM Account Statement Report
       • Use this report to help identify missing transactions
       • Use CM Transactions Report to tie with GL Trial Balance Report
       • The last amount on the CM Transactions Report should tie with the GL Trial Balance
       • Can limit the Source on both reports to just AP or AR, etc.
3. Accounts Receivable module:
   • Run AR Customer Accounts by Customer report.
     • Page to the end – look at AR Recap – will show if you have more than 1 Receivable Type
     • Enter Ending Month (no Beginning Month) > All Transactions > Detail Level >
       • Will give you GL numbers for receivable and retainage
       • Gives ending balance for both
     • Run GL Trial Balance report (best report for totals)
       • Beginning and Ending Accounts receivable and retainage
       • Compare totals to each of the Receivable Type GL Accounts
       • If they do not match, continue this process of comparing reports until you find a month they do match.
     • Run the AR aging report
     • Identify positive and negative amounts that can be offset with a zero Cash Receipt entry (make sure retainage has been released properly!)
4. AR to GL: How to find what is causing the out of balance:
   • Make sure the GL Beginning Balance Update has been run for this year – if this is the beginning of a new Fiscal Year, you'll will want to run it again just in case.
     • This can be run multiple times. For instance, if your CPA gives you some year-end adjustments to enter, then you would re-run the GL Beginning Balance Update.
     • If the month does not balance, you will see if the month prior reconciles. If not, you will need to locate the last time it did balance and go from there.
     • If you have multiple Receivable Types using the same GL Account, you will need to run the AR Customer Accounts by Customer report for the additional Receivable Types when you reconcile.
     • You will compare the GL Trial Balance report and the AR Customer Accounts by Customer report to locate your missing/problem transactions.
5. AP to GL: How to find what is causing the out of balances
   • Use the AP Open Payables Report - Compare to the GL Trial Balance Report
   • If the month does not balance, see if the month prior reconciles. If not, you will need to locate the last time it did balance and go from there.
   • Run the AP Check Register (not the AP Check Register by Date). Compare to GL Trial Balance; Limit Source = AP, Journal = CA (or whatever is your journal assigned to payments in AP Company Parameters)
   • Run the AP Batch Transaction Report – Export to Excel in order to total the report. Run the GL Trial Balance Report; Limit Source = AP, Journal = AP) or whatever is your journal assigned to Expenses in AP Company Parameters).
   • Check to see if any other Source posted to this GL Account
   • Check HQ Batch Control for posted activity with flags turned off – This will show in the Grid with the GL Interface Level set to 0.
6. How to fix inventory if the monthly reconciliation was missed:
   • If you do not want the Inventory adjustment batch to post to GL in that month:
   • Post the batch in Inventory (flags are turned off to GL so the update will only take place in Inventory)
   • Print out the batch reports from the IN process
   • Perform the IN Monthly Reconciliation process
   • Go to IN > Programs > IN Company Parameters – set the GL Adjustment Interface to NONE
   • When all users are off Vista, you will need to reopen the Subledgers in GL Month End Close
   • Return to IN Company Parameters – set the GL Adjustment Interface back
   • Return to the GL Month End Close to reclose the month opened in Step #1
     • Using the IN batch reports – perform a GL Journal Entry in an open month so the adjustment is recognized.
7. Balancing Job Billing to Accounts Receivable:
   • In AR > Reports, run AR Customer Accounts by Contract Report – check for any payments posted directly to Retainage. If the payment cannot be changed, it will need to be adjusted using a $0 Cash Receipt
   • In AR: Also look through this report for adjustment entries (A) – if the adjustment was done in AR then JB does not reflect the change.
   • In JB: Run the List of Bills per Contract report – any bills not interface will not reflect accurately in AR. These invoices need to be interfaced. Bills can be thrown into a Change Status even if they originated in a closed month. Bills cannot be “locked”.
   • In JB: Compare the List of Bills per Contract report to the AR: Contract Billing and Receipts report – if any invoices are in AR and not in JB, look for any bills that are in the ‘not interfaced’ status or look to see if there is a wrong customer. JB needs a Never-interface bill entered in order to balance -OR- the AR bill needs to be deleted in AR and recreated in JB.
   • You may want to run the JB Manual Update Process to make sure the ending contract amount is current – This process will recalculate the end/beginning totals of each bill. Sometimes if a JB bill is deleted, when it has a bill created after it, the balance forward amount does not get updated properly.

Note: AR Write-Offs are not reflected in JB or JC – Write-offs also do not appear on the AR Contract Billings and Receipts report.