Establishing the Current A/P Accounting Period

Since SchoolLeader accounting is accounting period based, it is important to know which A/P accounting period you are in, before you start any A/P functions.

There are two ways to determine your current A/P accounting period:

1. click on Accounting, Fiscal Calendar Maintenance, select your fiscal year, select Payable, and click on FETCH CURRENT CALENDAR.  Your fiscal calendar is displayed.  Use the scroll bar to scroll up or down to locate the current period.  It will be highlighted in green, and the status will say OPEN.

2. from the vendor folder, select an active vendor, then click on their Billing Account Tab.  To ensure that the current accounting period is being displayed, click on the 'circle' in the accounting period control buttons.  The circle ALWAYS brings you to the current accounting period.

When you start up FrontDesk Manager, SchoolLeader will assume you want data displayed for the current accounting period.  However, if you or someone else has been scrolling through accounting periods,  you may no longer be looking at data from the current accounting period.

Remember to be conscious of which accounting period is your current period.  The dates corresponding to the accounting period are always displayed alongside the accounting period.

Establishing Your Current A/P Accounting Period

During initial setup of FrontDesk Manager, we have defined the fiscal calendars, but we have left the current A/P accounting period set to 1.  This has been done for two reasons:

1. We do not know when our customers will begin using the accounting functions and how they will set up their fiscal calendars.
2. Some customers choose to go back in time to reflect bills and payments made earlier in the year, even though the 'real' calendar says it's July.  For these customers, they will enter:
   - all of their A/P activity into the correct period
   - close that period using the bookclose process
   - enter the next period's A/P activity
   - close that period using the bookclose process, and so on.  
   This process will continue until their A/P fiscal calendar matches the 'real' calendar.

Advancing the A/P Fiscal Calendar

To advance your fiscal calendar, first determine the accounting period you want to be in:

• click on Accounting

• click on Fiscal Calendar Maintenance

• type in your fiscal year

• select Payables

• click on FETCH CURRENT CALENDAR.  Your fiscal calendar is displayed.  Use the scroll bar to scroll up or down to locate the current period.  It will be highlighted in green, and the status will say OPEN.   View the calendar and determine which period represents the 'real' calendar period.  For example, Period 30 may represent 7/14/02 - 7/20/02.  Remember the period number.

• click on ADVANCE CURRENT PERIOD

• use the up and down arrows to display the period you want to advance to

• click on ADVANCE; you will be prompted with a warning message.  Click on YES if you want to advance to the displayed period, or NO if you want to cancel.

Your current A/P accounting period has now been established, and you can begin using the SchoolLeader A/P functions.