As we receive a higher volume of calls this time of year assisting Collectors in their Year End Close, we thought it would be beneficial to write a blog post to give you some guidance in preparation.

Before Year End hits, you can look at your reports and make sure you have the documents to back up your figures. For example:

• Run the Abatements Report, Reports | Abatements, for the entire year. You should have a signed abatement form for each abatement and the total should be equal to what is on your Abatement Report.
• Run the Refunds Report, Reports | Credits | Assigned To | Payables | By Assigned Date, to make sure it matches the amount Finance has.
• Run the Collections YTD report, Reports | Collections YTD.  You should have signed warrants from your Selectmen/Assessor that equal the totals in the Committed & Supplemented column. 

Once you are finished entering payments for the year, you will need to print your reports and balance for the month of December. Then you will be able to move on to running reports and balancing for the year. Keep in mind, you CANNOT post any transaction/payment for 2022 until your 2021 fiscal year has been closed in collect.

Previously, if you posted a transaction (payment, abatement, refund) after year end but before you closed the fiscal year, you had to call Avitar for a script to update the monthly balance report. With our 7.0.4 update, if you post a transaction after year end but before you close, when selecting the Monthly Balance or Lien Redemption report, a message box will display notifying you that “You are currently past the end of FY2021, but not yet into FY2022. The effective dates for transactions done in this period will be modified to be included on this report.” This process will eliminate the need to call Avitar for a script.

Since there are many reports that need to be created/printed, we have several Year End Tips and Tutorial topics with more detailed instructions for:

1. Monthly Balancing
2. List of reports that are necessary for most audits.
3. Reviewing, understanding, balancing, and submitting your MS-61.
4. Creating a backup of your data.
5. Performing the actual Close Period.

If you encounter any issues, or have any questions, please feel free to call us.