How do Bokio users close down after the year end

[Pinnerite]

In Bokio, what does the user do to close down the revenue items (Sales costs, expenses) to the Profit and Loss Account as at the year end?

 

[johndon68]

Did you check the Bokio website?

Two minutes on there and I found this:

How do fiscal years work? | Bokio

A fiscal year is used to record your bookkeeping. Find out how to create, change and manage your fiscal years in Bokio, the free accounting software

www.bokio.co.uk

 

[Pinnerite]

I had already surfed the site. That particular page doesn't answer the question.
It presents a suck-it-and-see approach.
Does opening a new fiscal year achieve the close-down objective?
What do you do if it doesn't?
That leads me to wonder, how does one take a backup, followed by how does one restore from a backup.

The most expensive part of selecting a new bookkeeping system is the cost of all the keystrokes.
It therefore pays to be cautious.
I hope someone with Bokio experience starts to follow this thread.

 

[Scalloway]

I would suggest looking at the reports avaialable. Is there a Profit and Loss Account for the fiscal year?

 

[Argentum Tax]

I agree with Scalloway.
From the Bokio extract posted by johndon68, it seems Bokio works like most other accounting software. The books are not ’closed off’ like old fashioned ledgers. You have an accounting date (or fiscal year, which I suspect is American) and the software extracts reports from the data based on that. There is no ‘closing off’. You simply extract the reports you need.

 

[Pinnerite]

Thank you. In the UK we always refer to an accounting year. The Fiscal year being reserved for the tax year. For corporation tax that is to 31 March and for income tax the 5 April.

I am beginning to think that the process of starting a new "fiscal year" might well cause the revenue accounts to cause an automatic transfer to the Profit and Loss Account. If so, why not say so? I prefer to be confident before taking a reckless step.

 

[Scalloway]

I am beginning to think that the process of starting a new "fiscal year" might well cause the revenue accounts to cause an automatic transfer to the Profit and Loss Account. If so, why not say so? I prefer to be confident before taking a reckless step.

The Profit and Loss Account in any accounting software I have used allows you to get a picture at a chosen date, then you go back to your data and carry on.

Bokio wouldn't last very long in business if it zapped your data.

 

[Pinnerite]

If by zapped you mean wipe out, then you would be right but a journal entry transferring the revenue balances to the P&L Account was what I had in mind. I have using computerised bookkeeping and accounting systems since 1980 so I am not new to evaluations.

 

[Scalloway]

a journal entry transferring the revenue balances to the P&L Account was what I had in mind

I last saw that with desktop Sage and you had to close down the year before it happened. You ran a P &L any time you wanted. That is an old fashioned concept going back to handwritten ledgers which doesn't happen with modern accounting systems.

 

[clyde123]

Is there a backup function in Bokio?

For instance, in Sage, you would make a backup before doing your year end.
Then if all went belly up, you would just do a Restore from the backup, and be back to square one.

 

[Argentum Tax]

Is there a backup function in Bokio?

So far as I can see the data is stored on the Cloud so there is no need to backup.

Just like most modern accounting software, there is no annual close. The Accounts (Balance Sheet and P&L) are extracted as a report based on whatever accounting date the user specifies. Quite simple once you get used to the idea. It just takes some understanding at first. The data is always there, unchanged, no matter what accounting date you choose. And there is no need to do backups, the data is unchanged.

 

[clyde123]

So far as I can see the data is stored on the Cloud so there is no need to backup.

One of my pet hates

"In the cloud" just means it's on someone else's server.
There have been instances of data loss from "the cloud".

I have to trust the banks with my money. At least if they fail, we've got an £85,000 guarantee.
Is there any insurance over data loss?

 

[dan@bokio]

One of my pet hates

"In the cloud" just means it's on someone else's server.
There have been instances of data loss from "the cloud".

I have to trust the banks with my money. At least if they fail, we've got an £85,000 guarantee.
Is there any insurance over data loss?

Hi! I work at Bokio as the UK Accounting Manager. We take many steps at Bokio to keep your data safe and we have multiple levels of Back up solutions. On top of this it's possible to export all Accounting data and files from Bokio. You can read more about this here.

 

[dan@bokio]

I had already surfed the site. That particular page doesn't answer the question.
It presents a suck-it-and-see approach.
Does opening a new fiscal year achieve the close-down objective?
What do you do if it doesn't?
That leads me to wonder, how does one take a backup, followed by how does one restore from a backup.

The most expensive part of selecting a new bookkeeping system is the cost of all the keystrokes.
It therefore pays to be cautious.
I hope someone with Bokio experience starts to follow this thread.

Thank you. In the UK we always refer to an accounting year. The Fiscal year being reserved for the tax year. For corporation tax that is to 31 March and for income tax the 5 April.

I am beginning to think that the process of starting a new "fiscal year" might well cause the revenue accounts to cause an automatic transfer to the Profit and Loss Account. If so, why not say so? I prefer to be confident before taking a reckless step.

Hi, My name is Dan. The process of opening a new Fiscal Year in Bokio doesn't remove access to the previous year and you can continue to record journal entries in the previous year and view reports. If you close a Fiscal year you will be able to continue to run reports for the closed year but not record any new journal entries. However, it is possible to reopen the fiscal year if you did this by mistake. Please note that when it comes to running the Balance sheet report the previous years profit will always be shown as retained earnings. However, currently this isn't reflected in the Trial Balance report so in order for this to reflected you need to run this journal entry. You can read more about Fiscal years in Bokio.

 

[DontAsk]

Hi! I work at Bokio as the UK Accounting Manager. We take many steps at Bokio to keep your data safe and we have multiple levels of Back up solutions.

That's all well and good whilst Bokio is Bokio. What if you sell out to a competitor and they completely change the business model? It's happened many times with users losing access or having to pay more.

On top of this it's possible to export all Accounting data and files from Bokio. You can read more about this here.

DO THIS! NOW!

Then do it on a regular basis.

 

[fisicx]

On top of this it's possible to export all Accounting data and files from Bokio. You can read more about this here.

That link doesn’t explain how to export data.

 

[dan@bokio]

That link doesn’t explain how to export data.

I understand that, I was sharing this to show more details on the steps we take to protect your data. If users want to export their data they can go to "settings" and then "Export data" to do this.