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.
Warning
You should not think about changing last year’s figures until you have closed last year in your ledger, since you could still post transactions.Once you have closed last year’s figures, however, it is then safe to do so.
Article ID: 1006
Created On: Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:01 PM
Last Updated On: Mon, Jun 19, 2023 at 7:25 PM
Online URL: https://kb.datafile.co.uk/article/comparatives-â€-enter-comparative-figures-nominal-1006.html