Accountant's version of QB backup - Question

My fiscal year begins every June 1st.

I've used QB 2004 pro in the past and simply created an "accountant's copy" backup every year on June 1st, and sent it to my accounting person.

This year I'm using QB 2010 pro and when I want to create an accountant's copy, QB wants me to enter a cut-off date that seems to define a day when I can no longer change things in my old QB data, but my accountant still can. I would be able to change things after this cut-off date, but not before.

This sounds easy enough, I just tell QB that the cut-off would happen at midnight of May 31.

The question I have is: QB is prompting me to choose a date that is a few weeks into the next fiscal year. I don't understand this at all.

What should I do about choosing the cur-off date?

Thank you for any help,

Sardine

Reply to
Sardine
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Just pick a date that makes sense to you. Assuming you are done entering the data into your Fiscal year ending 5/31/10 then use that as your closing date. This allows your accountant to make changes to your financials and send them back to you for importing into the working file.

If the accountant does not send you an updated file then sending a portable file or regular backup is sufficient.

Reply to
Laura

There are two dates to consider- Closing Date and Cut-off Date.

The Closing Date should be set in your file (Menu>Edit>Preferences>Accounting>Company) to 5/31/10 if that is the end of your fiscal year. This will help prevent inadvertent changes to the prior year data. If you set a password please be sure to tell your accountant his/her file password and the year-end password.

The Cut-off date is asked for when creating an Accountant's Copy. This date should generally be set two weeks after the end of the fiscal period when making the copy for the Accountant. There is a reason for Not using a cut-off date that is the same as the end of the fiscal year. There are times when an Accountant needs to make adjusting Journal Entries for year-end that are reversed at the beginning of the next fiscal year. If your cut-off date is the end of the fiscal year then he/she will not be able to make the reversing adjusting entries in the Accountant's copy to send back to you.

As Laura stated, if the Accountant is NOT sending you an updated file with his/her changes, then a straight backup is fine instead of an Accountant's Copy. However, I would still recommend setting the Closing Date in your file. I would not suggest a Portable file since I don't think that this sends the audit trail information that the Accountant sometimes needs.

Reply to
CMS_VA_CPA

Good catch...I meant Cut off date not Closing date for the accountants copy. And thanks for the explanation on how to pick a Cut-off date. I was not aware of that we should pick a date 2 weeks after the end of the fiscal period. I personally don't use the AC because there are too many restrictions on what activities we can do while working with it. I prefer to have the accountant send me the journal entries that need to be entered to finalize the fiscal year.

A portable file does send the audit trail in the file. It only omits things like letters and templates that are not really needed since they are included in the initial installation.

Reply to
Laura

Thanks to all for the information. Since I've never had a revision sent back to me I will simply send my latest full backup to my accountant.

I actually have had to do this the last few years when I was using QB-2004, the AC version could not be loaded on my accountant's newer version of QB however a regular backup worked just fine.

Sardine

Reply to
Sardine

If your accountant could not load your AC then it means that he did not have QB-2004. They were taking your backup copy and upgrading it to whatever version they were using in order to review your file.

If you are e-mailing your file then use the Portable copy as it will be a lot smaller than a regular backup file.

Reply to
Laura

Laura: Thank you for prompt and useful information. Sardine

Reply to
Sardine

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