We wanted to send a quick reminder to those of you with a fiscal year ending June 30th. First is a summary of your options for when you actually execute your year end. Second are a few links to documents that can assist you with finalizing your MS-61 Report and generating a database backup.

The Avitar Tax Collect system has a hard fiscal year end close, which means that you cannot process work in the current fiscal year until the last fiscal year has been closed. When you close the fiscal year, the system captures the ending balances (outstanding invoice amounts by warrant) for that fiscal year and creates the beginning balances for the next fiscal year. The beginning and ending balances are extremely important as the beginning balances of this year must match the ending balances of the previous year. If they do not, you must explain to the Department of Revenue (DRA) why they have changed. With this in mind, the system was designed not to allow changes in a closed fiscal year, hence the hard close.

1. Close on July 1st: You can choose to run all of your reports, balance for the year, and close the fiscal year on July 1st (or immediately thereafter such as, for example, the morning of July 3rd). This option allows you to then post payments for July and is recommended for those towns with a 2017P01 due date in the first week of July. However, be aware that once you close you will not be able to post payments with a payment date prior to July.
2. Leave your books open and close by July 10th: By law, you can leave your books open for ten days into the next fiscal year, in order to post any payments you receive for June. Keep in mind that you should only be processing payments during this time, not assigning credits or posting abatements. All other transactions should have been completed prior to year-end. Note, this option will not allow you to post July payments until after you have closed your fiscal year.

It is up to you on which option you prefer, but remember that if you balance and run your reports on June 30th and subsequently post a payment or process any transaction (assign a credit, process an abatement, delete a transaction) you will need to rerun your reports. Note that if you do any work after June 30th and want it to be reflected on your June Monthly Balance Report you will need to call us, before you close, in order to recapture your June report.

Lastly, we have also provided links to documents that review in more details instructions for reviewing your MS-61, the Year End Process, and instructions for creating a backup of your data (File | Backup Database).