It is possible to make changes to a prior period, such as adding additional assets or inputting Section 179 expense, and advance these changes to the current period by reclosing the client from the prior period. This can be done by following the steps below. Two options exist when reclosing from a prior period; merge or overwrite. These options are summarized below.

Overwrite – This option will bring forward all changes by overwriting the next period, meaning that  any information that was inputted in the next period, such as asset acquisitions and dispositions, will be gone.  Since each period is a continuation of the prior period, overwriting will also eliminate all other depreciation periods that existed. For example, consider a client with the 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 periods.  If the 2014 period is reclosed to 2015 period and the overwrite options selected, the 2016 and 2017 periods will be gone after the process completes.  Only the 2014 and 2015 periods will be present and the client would have to be closed again to create a new 2016 and 2017 period. All of the acquisitions and dispositions that were inputted in the original 2016 and 2017 periods will be gone. Once a period has been overwritten there is not a way to undo this action within the application; a backup would have to be restored in order to return data to the state it was before overwriting.

Merge  - This option will not replace the next period, but bring forward changes made in the prior period after the original closing and integrate it with the existing data. Only data that has been changed will be brought forward and Information that is in the next period, such as acquisitions and dispositions, will still be present.

To merge forward new treatments added to a prior period the treatment must first already be enabled in each subsequent year. For more information see Fixed Assets CS : Adding Treatments to Prior Period  

For special instructions on merging forward changes to bonus depreciation elections see Fixed Assets CS: Changing bonus depreciation elections in a prior period

Note that you may always test the impact of reclosing a period by creating a copy of the client and reclosing the period within the copy prior to working on the original data.

Follow the instructions below to make changes in a prior period and carry those changes forward to the current period.

1. In your Fixed Assets CS client, Choose File > Select Period to Process or click the icon on the toolbar.
2. Highlight the prior period, and click Move to Selected Period.
3. Make the necessary changes.
4. Choose File > Select Period to Process > Close to Next Year.
5. When prompted with the dialog below, click Merge to have your changes from the prior year update the current year information. Note: Asset numbers may be renumbered during the process, if necessary.

   

Related topics

Fixed Assets CS: Changing bonus depreciation elections in a prior period 

Fixed Assets CS : Adding Treatments to Prior Period

Data Exists dialog

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