Short Years Tab

You need to use the Short Years tab only if you are entering a company’s past history, or if you are editing a company setup and want to enter the dates of current or future short years. An initial short year is completed automatically if you complete the Book Defaults tab and indicate that the first year of business is less than 12 months.

You can enter up to twenty different short years for each book. If the first year of business was a short year, its fiscal year-end date appears in the window and is disabled. All fields on this tab are date fields. Enter dates in the MM/YYYY format, or use the calendar to select the fiscal year-end.

Year 1: When setting up a company that has a first year of less than 12 months duration based on the Business Start Date, this field is completed automatically based on the entries you made in the Company Information fields. If the first year of business is not a short year, this field is available for use in the future. See the explanation for Years 2-20 below.

Years 2-20: Use the fields in each row to enter the month and year of the new fiscal year-end for each book listed at the top of the column.

The application assumes that a fiscal year ends with the last day of the month. It also assumes the new fiscal year-end is in effect for subsequent years, unless you enter another new fiscal year-end.

Note: Ideally, you should enter a short year before you calculate depreciation for the given year. However, if you need to enter a short year after you've initially calculated depreciation for the year, or if you need to change a short-year date you've entered (including a short first year of business), you must clear all previously calculated depreciation figures by resetting depreciation. You do not need to reset depreciation if you are adding a short-year date later than the date(s) through which you have calculated current depreciation for all assets.

Example: Company A has a fiscal year-end of December 2020. They have calculated depreciation through June when they realize they will have a short year ending in August 2020. Company A should reset depreciation on all active assets that were previously calculated through June because the original calculations assumed a full 12-month fiscal year.