COMPARATIVES – Enter Comparative Figures - Nominal

As well as printing financial summaries which compare the current year against the budgets that you have set, you can also compare the current year against last year — which we call the comparative figures.

The ledger keeps not only the current year’s figures by period, but also those for the last two years on a period-by-period basis too. There are several circumstances, however, when you may want to change last year’s actual figures

When the auditor’s adjustments have made significant changes to last year’s figures and you have closed the previous year.Although you may post a journal to change the current year’s opening balances this does not affect last year’s figures

When you have made a significant change to the basis of the current year’s figures, and want to change last year’s to the same basis so that you can compare them properly

Where a company is not interested in comparing against last year’s figures, but perhaps wants to compare the current year against (say) the original budget for the current year as well as the new revised budget

In all these situations you may want to change the comparative figures from last year (and even the year before) which are held in your ledger.