How do you set up the company year if your first year is more than 12 months. Our first company year runs from 10th November 2008 to 31st December 2009.

I only seem to be able have a twelve month year as there is only a facility for the year ending date to be entered, not the year start date as well.

Thanks

Hello Ian,

Yes, that is a little confusing. When you set up your data file Solar Accounts asks you to enter a financial year start date, then assumes the year end date is 12 months later.

However, the only real affect of having an incorrect year-end is in producing a report - for example the Profit and Loss report configured to show 'This Financial Year' will only show 12 months. The solution is simply to change the report period type to 'Custom' and set the dates to match the correct financial year.

Regards,

It's quite normal for the first period of trading to be something other than 12 months. The law states it must be between 6 and 18 months of the first day of trading - thereby giving you freedom to select ANY year end date at all.

Tell Solar Accounts that your year will start on the day the year will normally begin (eg 1 January if your year end is 31 December, 1 May if your year end is 30 April). Ensure the date is BEFORE you begin trading (eg If you started trading in November 2008 and your year will normally begin 1 January, enter 1 January 2008).

If your first period is LESS than 12 months, there's nothing more to do: just use Solar Accounts as usual.

If your first period is MORE than 12 months, simply run reports for both "years" and total the results. The comparison reports (showing the current year and previous year) will be useful for this: export them to Excel and then add a final column, with each row adding the two previous columns together.

Hope this helps.

Regards