Closing The Current Accounting Period Accounts

Closing the current accounting period accounts means : Making sure the transaction data consist only the transactions for the current accounting period - remove data irrelevant to the current accounting period and make sure only data related to current accounting period are taken in.

Please note that the term Accounting period is used instead of Accounting Year because an accounting period may span over two years eg from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021.

Once the data in sheet DATA conform to the above, automatically the Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Profit Loss and other sheets are updated.

Make a copy of the current period file. So, after the copying, there are 2 files containing the same transaction data. First, the current period file, and secondly the file for the next accounting period.

Example name of current accounting period file is accjandec2020.xls, and example name of next accounting period is accjandec2021.xls. It is easier to find the files if they are saved into the same folder.

It is a good practice if you make a copy of the current file only after you decide to close the current file. Close current accounting period file means you will not add or delete anymore row to the file.

Any changes to the current accounting period data is done only before auditor adjustment.

After the copying, the current accounting period file will still contain data for the next accounting period file. Those data meant for the next accounting period need to be removed (ie the relevant rows need to be deleted), leaving only data for the current accounting period. So, your Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss statements are closed.

After the copying, the next accounting period file will still contain data for the current accounting period. Those data meant for the current accounting period need to be removed (ie the relevant rows need to be deleted), leaving only data for the next accounting period. So, your Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss statements are closed.

How to remove the data in the current accounting period with date outside the accounting period?

Identify rows in column DATE which contain the irrelevant date.
You can identify one by one.
You can use filtering method.


After the copying, if you make adjustments or addition or deletion to the current accounting period, it will affect the figures brought forward to the next accounting period, so make sure that the affected accounts in the next accounting period file is adjusted accordingly.

After the copying, if the auditor make adjustments or addition or deletion to the current accounting period, it will affect the figures brought forward to the next accounting period, so make sure that the affected accounts in the next accounting period file is adjusted accordingly. So auditor adjustments should be written to both files ie current accounting period file and next accounting period file.