Begin balance Yr 2 does not = end balance Yr1

[LMac]

Hi All, we have started working with a power church plus online system that has been running for 6 years, and for the past 3 years we have observed the same challenge that when running a Trial Balance in a new year we find that for SOME of the Balance Sheet accounts their opening balance does not equal it's closing balance from the prior year. I am wondering if there is some sort of year-end procedure/process we are missing?
In my troubleshooting I have a feeling it is related to some Year-end adjusting entries that the auditors prescribe and these are then input as Journal Entries (in order to try and stay in-sync with auditors ending balances) and when input they are marked as "year-end" entries - so I am wondering if "year-end" journal entries are perhaps treated differently to regular Journal entries within the system?
another observation is that when running a TB REPORT I notice there is not the usual option to specify whether year-end entries should in included or excluded - can anyone clarify that for TB Reports the year-end entries are always included? (knowing that will help in trouble shooting
I also wonder if it could because some of the auditors adjusting entries at end of prior year are coded directly to Fund Balances and equity (high level roll-up accounts) and so wondering if those entries could perhaps be missing-out on some of/any important processing of the "closes to" functionality ??
Maybe there are some cardinal rules we should be following about what level to code the journal entries? the lower the better I'm sure, but realistically auditor's will give us high level stuff to work with so/but then perhaps we should always try to INPUT at the lowest level?

Would not "closing" old months and if we have more than 18 months "unclosed" maybe cause some of these hiccups ? if so then you'd think it would effect all accounts right? but I note it is only some accounts that are effected.

This is sooo just me guessing - anyone encountered this before ??? THANKS FOR ANY IDEAS!

To handle this each year we have to do some manual adjusting entries to fix prior year balances, but to improve everyone's confidence in the data it would be good for us to solve this/use the system properly. And I should say the structure we are working with is very (overly!) complicated, the CoA is at least 12 pages with 5 Major Funds/Ledgers and approx more 40 program level sub-funds -so doing a manual adjusting entry each year may be the most efficient way to sync-up ps: One day I would like to re-start with a new simplified structure !

[Zorak]

You are correct, the Trial Balance automatically includes the year end transactions. When running the Balance Sheet for the last month of the fiscal year, it will have the option to include year end transactions. With that checked, the ending balances will match the Trial Balance for that period. It is reports like Balance Sheet and Income & Expense Statement that are meant to be published that have the option of reporting the year end transactions separately.

[NeilZ]

Also .. not 'closing months' would have nothing to do with what you're seeing.