---
title: "Fiscal Year and Year-End Closing"
description: Define your accounting calendar, generate and close periods, close a fiscal year into Retained Earnings, and set where reconciliation history starts.
url: "https://theasst.com/docs/fiscal-year-and-year-end-closing/"
updated: "2026-10-06"
category: Accounting
---

# Fiscal Year and Year-End Closing

Fiscal Years define your accounting calendar — the periods (usually months) transactions fall into, and when a year is closed for good. Every journal entry must fall in a period; if you post a transaction with a date that no period covers, TBA offers to create one.

## The Fiscal Year List

![Fiscal Years list with FY2025 and FY2026, both Open, 12 monthly periods each, and a Start of reconciliation history field](https://theasst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/fiscalyear-list.webp)

Columns: **Name**, **Year#**, **Start**, **End**, **Type**, **Status**, and **Periods**. Click a year to open it, or **Add new** to create one.

### Start of Reconciliation History

At the top of the list, the **Start of reconciliation history** date controls how far back [Reconciliation](https://theasst.com/docs/reconciliation/) reaches — transactions before it stay in the books but are no longer offered for reconciliation. Set the date and click **Save**.

## The Fiscal Year Page

- **Name** (required) — for example “FY2026” or “2025-2026”.
- **Year number** (required) — a number used for sorting, such as 2026.
- **Start date** and **End date** (required).
- **Period type** (required) — *Monthly* (12 periods), the weekly retail calendars *4-4-5*, *5-5-4*, and *4-5-4* (12 periods), *13-Period weekly*, or *Custom*. Week-based types adjust the start and end dates to whole weeks.
- **Week ends on** — for week-based types, which day the week ends.
- **Status** — Open or Closed.

Below the fields is the list of **Accounting Periods**, with each period’s number, name, start, end, status, and available actions.

## Periods

![Fiscal Year detail for FY2025 with 12 monthly periods, each with Close and Lock actions](https://theasst.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/fiscalyear-detail.webp)

- **Generate Periods** — creates the periods for the year from its type and dates. Warning: it deletes and recreates any existing periods, so only use it when no journal entries have been posted to the year.
- **Close** a period once you’re confident nothing else needs to post to it — it can still be reopened later if needed.
- **Lock** a period to prevent any further changes, including reopening — use this once you’re truly done with it.

## Closing a Fiscal Year

**Close Year** closes the fiscal year itself. TBA posts a closing journal entry that zeroes your income and expense accounts into Retained Earnings — the standard year-end close every accounting system does — and automatically closes any periods still open. You are asked to give a reason, which is recorded in the year’s audit log.

- **Reopen Year** — undoes a close if you need to post something more to that year; a reason is required.
- **Event Log** — shows who closed, reopened, or changed the year, and why.
- **Delete Year** — removes the year and its periods. Cannot be undone.

After closing, make sure the next year exists and has its periods generated before you start posting to it. Report results for a closed year are explained on the [Profit and Loss](https://theasst.com/docs/profit-and-loss/) and [Balance Sheet](https://theasst.com/docs/balance-sheet/).