Transferring Year End Profit or Loss to the Balance Sheet

At the start of a new year, whether or not you have run a year cleardown, you normally transfer the old year's net profit or loss to a balance sheet account. Before this is done, a trial balance printed for the new year shows the relevant amount. SunSystems automatically prints a line, 'Total Prior Year's Profit/Loss', immediately before the report totals.

Once you have reconciled and confirmed this value the transfer is carried out as follows:

1. Ensure you have a profit and loss account called, for example, Prior Year Profit/Loss. This account should not have an account code within the range normally included on any financial reports. This is required for system technical reasons.
2. Create your balance sheet account called, for example, Retained Earnings, which forms part of the balance sheet.
3. Print a Trial Balance for the first period in the new year, and note the amount called prior year's net profit/loss.

4. The profit and loss entry is ignored in the new year's trial balance, but the balance sheet entry is included.