Blues music reflects the trials and tribulations of life. End-of-Year for the accounting profession is a time of high stress. If your accounting software imposes year end closing procedure deadlines on you, then it too is contributing to your blue mood.
Your accounting software may be contributing to your End-of-Year blues!
End-of-Year in the government contracting world starts the clock on a series of deadlines that must be dealt with in the coming months as the Holiday season fades into memory. Preparing for your CPA firm audit or review along with DCAA Incurred Cost Submission filings and Internal Revenue Service filings require working extra hours to meet each deadline on time. On top of everything else, you may have Workers’ Compensation audits, 401K audits, bank audits and DCAA audits. Let's not forget W-2 and 1099 filing deadlines. By the way, do you have time to work on a cost proposal? All of this looms each January in addition to your typical day-to-day job responsibilities.
Therefore, the last thing you need is your accounting software contributing to your end-of-year blues. The first thing you need to examine when performing year end closing procedures on your books is the number of steps you must perform.
Questions that one might ask to determine if your accounting software is contributing to deadline stress might be:
1) When closing, is it easy to make adjustments after I close?
2) Do I have to close again after I make post closing adjustments?
3) Do I have to perform a roll-forward process to update prior year information to this year?
4) Do I have to close to get 1099’s and W-2 reporting done?
5) If you failed to correctly enter AP vouchers with accurate 1099 totals, can you easily correct the information for the prior year while still working in the current year?
6) Can you perform the accounting software’s End-of-Year process multiple times?
7) Can you easily go back to any prior year, make adjustments, then close the year and update your current year’s Retained Earnings?
It would be unfortunate if you had to answer "No" to any of the above questions. Yes, the extra workload brought about by rigid accounting software at calendar year-end can give just about anyone the blues, except for those who might profit from it by turning what should be an easy undertaking into a step-by-step training course.
With this in mind, we designed SYMPAQ SQL with the specific goal of eliminating arduous closing processes that might contribute to your end-of-year blues. If you want to take a ski vacation right after the start of a new calendar year, then go ahead! Unlike unforgiving government contract accounting software that mandates "hard" closes, roll-forward processes, and rigid sequential work flow, SYMPAQ SQL does not control your time at year-end. Its streamlined design and its ability to keep multiple periods open and available to you while completing your end-of-year workload gives you the flexibility not to spend long hours in January closing your books.
