Closing Financial Records at Year-End

"Closing the books" is an option in QuickBooks, not a requirement. If you want to continue to permit changes to transactions from previous accounting cycles, such as the year just ended or an earlier year, you can ignore the option for setting a closing date. If you want to ensure that your year-end final numbers on your reports remain final, follow the steps in this example to set and protect your company's closing date.

Set the Closing Date

Select Preferences from the Edit menu.

Click the Accounting icon.

Click the Company Preferences tab.

TIMESAVER

If your User List window is already open, just click the Closing Date button and the Preferences window opens to the Accounting Company Preferences screen.

Enter a closing date.

Click the Set Password button.

Enter a password. You are limited to 16 characters, including spaces. Note that the password is case sensitive.

Reenter the password.

Click OK.

Click OK to close the Preferences window.

Restrict User Access to Pre-Closing Date Transactions

Select Set Up Users from the Company menu.

Click a user's name.

Click the Edit User button.

Click Next until you get to the Changing Or Deleting Transactions screen.

Indicate whether this user will have the right to change or delete transactions before the closing date.

Click Finish.

See Also

See the next task, "Creating a Closing Date Exception Report," for information on viewing a report that displays all the changes made to company records after the closing date.