15120: Updating Prior Year Client Chart of Accounts (DAS)

When you first open a client’s Chart of Accounts (COA) in Drake Accounting^® 20YY, the software will either update the COA automatically from Drake Accounting^® or it will prompt you to set up a new COA. Make sure the COA is set up by entering all beginning account balances before beginning bookkeeping in Drake Accounting^® 20YY.

YY refers to the current year, XX refers to the prior year. 

Overview to Updating a Client’s COA

There are three situations that can occur when updating a client's COA into Drake Accounting^® 20YY:

1. If the Drake Accounting^® COA has been closed out for the year:
   • A full COA update brings forward both the account structure and balances from the prior year.
   • Drake Accounting^® will automatically do a full Chart of Accounts update when the Client has been brought forward from the previous year.
2. If the Drake Accounting^® COA is corrupt, but has been closed out:
   • The account structure is brought forward with zero balance on each account.
     
   • You can enter beginning account balances until you make your first journal entry.
   • Once you enter an account balance, that account balance can be modified only by a journal entry.

     Important: Do not make any journal entries until all beginning account balances have been entered. Once you make a journal entry, you cannot enter beginning balances for any of the accounts.

3. If the Drake Accounting^® COA cannot be closed out:  
   • Only the COA account structure can be updated. 
   • Once the prior year bookkeeping has been closed out in the prior year, go to Accounting > Update Prior Year in Drake Accounting^® 20YY to bring forward those balances.

After going to Accounting > Update Prior Year and going through the process, open the client and go to Client > Edit > Business Information tab to verify the Start of Year date is correct.

1. Year End Close has Already Been Done in Drake Accounting^® 20XX

If you have done a Year End Close in Drake Accounting^® 20XX and are updating the client into Drake Accounting^® 20YY, you do not need to go to Accounting > Update Prior Year in Drake Accounting^® 20YY because the COA will automatically come over.

• If you do this and then go to Accounting > Update Prior Year in Drake Accounting^® 20YY, the clients that are available to be updated will be highlighted in a dark gray, as shown below, which means the COA has already been updated.

• Updating it again will cause the amounts in the COA to be what they were in Drake Accounting^® 20XX when doing the Year End Close.
• It will bring over the posted transactions from the 20XX software.
  • The COA screen will be overwritten, but the update would not replace any of the transactions.
• The following message will appear:

Choose Yes if you are certain that you want to re-update the bookkeeping. 

2 or 3. Year End Close has NOT Already Been Done (or cannot be done) in Drake Accounting^® 20XX

If you have not done a Year End Close in Drake Accounting^® 20XX:

1. Update the Client from the 20XX software into Drake Accounting^® 20YY (Client > Update Prior Year).
2. After you are finished with all the 20XX bookkeeping in the 20XX software, complete a Year End Close by going to Accounting > Year End Close.
3. Once completed, in Drake Accounting^® 20YY, go to Accounting > Update Prior Year.
4. Select the appropriate data path.
   • If the needed data path is not listed, click Browse.
5. Select the DrakeAccounting20XX folder.
   • Do NOT go into the folder. Selecting something from within the folder will result in a message Installation path is invalid. Unable to find DrakeAccounting20XX.exe in the selected path. Please select a valid installation path. 
6. Once the correct path is selected, if a client's bookkeeping is able to be updated, it will be listed in white, to indicate that their COA has not been brought over yet.