Hi, 

I had been a Senior Advisor IFS Finance (in consulting) for many years. As part of my job, I visited with many existing IFS clients long after go live - fixing issues.  

Hate to say this but I’ve seen a good number of IFS clients who did not perform the final year end.  But just because they did not complete year end - does not make that a “right” thing to do.   As we move to newer IFS versions, the year end process tests become more advanced.  In  other words what was good data for a year end in apps 7 may not be  good data in apps 10, and closing the year after an upgrade can be far more difficult.  

Long term, I believe that not closing the years, will certainly cause issues after upgrading to newer releases. 

Short term, failure to finally close a year end may not have any ill effects.

Best practice, the final year end should be completed.   I say this after working with clients who had difficulties doing a final year end after upgrading to a newer release.  Additionally, It can be an audit finding where an auditor may request a final year end process. It’s easier to do that final year end regularly rather than closing N years after an upgrade to a newer release. 

Best regards, 

Thomas

Thanks, @Thomas Peterson  for your interesting feedback.  Not the right thing to do but not necessarily wrong either.  Presumably those that didn’t, manually journalled P & L values?  

One further question if I may.  Have you come across multi-company instances where one company in a group performed Final Year End and others didn’t?

Linda 

Hi, 

A preliminary year end moves the balance sheet values to the period 0.   Period 0 will balance provided the profit was moved to equity (balance sheet).  

All can be done regardless if a final year end is run or not. 

A final year end makes sure IFS balances - rev - cost = 0   Asset + liability + equity = 0.   Final year end does not clear the profit,  It simply makes sure it has been done and then closes the year so no further activity can be performed (while the year is closed). 

In most multi-company environments ( I have seen), the parent company would require the subs to close the years.    If the entire structure subs and parent is managed by the same group (for example Corp manages company 1,2,and 3) these could be all open or all closed.    One of my clients is exactly like this and all years were still open. Problem was they moved to newer IFS versions and wanted to use newer IFS functionality.  That new functionality tested to see if the years were closed. They were not, and it was really tough to close the years in the newer IFS release. 

Best practice is to run the final year end. Failure to do so, will likely cause problems someday in the future. 

Best regards, 

Thomas

Any experience of company A running Final Year End and companies B, C and D not?

Thanks for your useful feedback, @Thomas Peterson