Opening a fiscal year

A fiscal year is the reference period for all your accounting. Every accounting document, every journal, every entry belongs to a specific fiscal year. You cannot create any document without an open fiscal year covering the relevant date. SynkriaOps alerts you immediately if you attempt to create an entry that falls outside any open fiscal year.

Fiscal year created automatically on sign-up

When you create your SynkriaOps company file, a first fiscal year is automatically created for the current calendar year (1 January → 31 December). You can start entering documents immediately without any additional setup.

If your accounting year does not follow the calendar year (for example: 1 July → 30 June), you can adjust the dates during the initial company setup in Settings → Company.

Tip

Under SYSCOHADA, most SMEs align their fiscal year with the calendar year (1 January → 31 December). If your company uses a non-calendar year for seasonal reasons, configure it at company creation to avoid complications at year-end closing.

Creating an additional fiscal year

You will need to create a new fiscal year in two situations:

• Beginning of a new accounting year (the previous year is closed or about to be closed).
• Historical data entry (you wish to enter entries from prior years).

1. From the navigation bar: Accounting → Fiscal Years. 2. Click + New fiscal year. 3. Enter the start date and end date (DD/MM/YYYY format). 4. Enter a descriptive label (e.g. Fiscal year 2026, FY 01/07/2025 - 30/06/2026). 5. Click Create. The status automatically changes to OPEN.

Non-overlap rule

SynkriaOps blocks the creation of a fiscal year whose dates overlap with an existing one. For example, if you already have a fiscal year 01/01/2026 → 31/12/2026, you cannot create a fiscal year 01/07/2026 → 30/06/2027 — the two periods overlap in the second half of 2026.

Situation	Behaviour
Non-overlapping dates	Fiscal year created normally
Partial overlap	Creation blocked — error message indicating the conflicting period
Identical to an existing fiscal year	Creation blocked

For consecutive fiscal years, ensure the end date of year N is the day before the start date of year N+1. Example: 31/12/2025 and 01/01/2026.

Opening a prior year for historical data entry

If you are taking over existing accounting records (migrating from another software or acquiring a business), you can create prior-year fiscal years to enter historical entries.

1. Create a fiscal year with dates corresponding to the relevant year (e.g. 01/01/2024 → 31/12/2024). 2. Enter your opening balance entries and the year’s transactions. 3. Once the migration is complete and verified, close the fiscal year to lock it. 4. Opening balances will automatically carry forward to the next fiscal year.

Refer to the dedicated article on accounting data migration for the full procedure for importing balances from a legacy system.

Managing multiple open fiscal years simultaneously

SynkriaOps allows multiple fiscal years to have OPEN status simultaneously (for example, if you are still finalising fiscal year 2025 while you have already started entering 2026 documents). When creating a document, SynkriaOps automatically selects the fiscal year corresponding to the document date.

Caution

Avoid leaving multiple fiscal years open indefinitely. A fiscal year should be closed within 3 to 6 months of its end date to maintain accounting integrity and enable correct financial statement generation.

Common errors

Error	Cause	Solution
”No open fiscal year for this date”	The document date falls outside all open fiscal years	Create a fiscal year covering that date, or correct the document date
”Date overlap detected”	The new fiscal year’s dates conflict with an existing one	Adjust the dates to eliminate any overlap
Fiscal year missing from the list	The fiscal year has been closed	A closed fiscal year remains visible in read-only mode — an ADMIN can reopen it if needed
Reversed dates	End date earlier than start date	Correct the dates before confirming

Tip

When migrating historical accounting data, create your prior-year fiscal years in chronological order (oldest first). Close each fiscal year before moving to the next so that opening balances (à-nouveaux) carry forward correctly.

What’s next?

• Import historical accounting data — Import your opening balances from a legacy accounting system (SAGE, CIEL, Excel).
• Understanding opening balances — How closing balances from one fiscal year become the opening balances of the next.
• Closing a fiscal year — Complete pre-closing checklist and step-by-step procedure to lock the fiscal year safely.