Changing a financial year to a different month has affected historic accounts

Question

Hi,

We recently changed our repoorting period from a "July to June" to a "April to March".

However, when we run prior year reports such as balance sheets and profit and loss accounts, they are not based on the "July to June" period that applied at thos points in time.  The balance sheets don't even balance for prior years.

Please advise how this can be fixed.

Thanks

Princess_R · Answer

Hi @Jason70,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. 
 
Changing the last month of your financial year also changes the previous financial year setup. And it's recommended to back up the file before making these changes so you can view historical reports for your previous financial years. We appreciate your suggestion about enhancing MYOB to prevent changes in the financial year from affecting the prior year's financial statements. We’re always looking for ways to improve our software, and your input is crucial in this process. To ensure your suggestion is forwarded and viewed by the developers, we recommend posting it on our Product Ideas board.

Please don't hesitate to start a new post again if you need further assistance.

Cheers,

Princess

Jason70 · Answer

Thanks Gavin, that is helpful.  Maybe MYOB can be enhanced to not have prior year's financial statements affected.  Thanks again, cheers.

gavin12345 · Answer

Hi @Jason70

When you roll over a financial year in MYOB, it processes an End of Year Journal to ensure the Balance Sheet balances. The date of this Journal is based on the settings at the time (eg 30 June). If you later change the settings, this will not change the previously generated transaction, it will remain as a 30 Jun transaction.

As you have changed a key setting, MYOB will now use that setting for generating Financial Statements, including ones for prior years. MYOB does not track that the FY for say 2022 ended 30 June and FY 2023 ended 31 Mar. It simply generates a Financial Statement based on the current setting.

So to generate accurate prior year financial statements, you would need to restore a backup taken before the change of setting.

Regards

Gavin