1. Open the entity from which you wish to copy the COA.
2. Select File | Back Up and save a backup to wherever you store backups.
3. Select File | Save as
4. Enter New Entity Name
5. Select File | Change Entity Name
6. Follow on-screen instructions
7. Select Utilities | Start Year Over. Pay close attention to the Start Year Over Again Folders screen and where it is saving the backup and the new data.
8. Select the desired option for New Year's Budget, Starting Balances, and Tax Year on the next screen Start Year Over Again - Options.

Now, the "new entity" with the new year started over with zero balances etc should be on your entity list and available for data entry. You may need to delete a few accounts etc. to clean up your new entity. Make sure you run a balance sheet to make sure no miscellaneous amounts transferred in.

You also need to go to Accounts | Equity Name Changes and zero the Accumulated Prior Year's Net Income amount. Since this is a new entity, there would be no prior year income.

Also, you will have the payee and payor list of that entity you copied the data files from. If you don't want them, you must Begin a New Year:

Select Accounts | Utilities
Select Begin a New Year
Say OK to saving the file, but make note of that file name so you can delete it later.

Select "delete unused payee or payors", zero prior year's net income and make sure you put the correct (i.e. current) year ending date.
Then make sure you go and delete the data files where the system saved them to when you "began" the New Year.

You should now have a new entity with a known Chart of Accounts and everything else with zero balances. Now you can go into each account and set up your balances etc as needed.

Sometimes you go to a lot of work getting the Chart of Accounts (COA) just right for one entity. Then you want to create other entities, perhaps a sibling or a similar partnership, that has mostly the same COA. You don’t need to start from scratch. You can copy the COA from the first entity and create the new entity at the same time. We’ll call the first entity the "template entity" since it has the COA template that you want to reuse.

This process also copies the Payee/Payor information, report settings, and other customized information.

If you are creating more than one new entity with the same template, you might first want to follow the steps below to create an extra entity that really is just a template. Use an entity name like "Template." See the Forum post new entity for suggestions how to do this without using up another entity

Although there are many steps below, the process is simple and should only take a few minutes.

If you have any suggestions to improve this process, please reply to this post.

These steps assume:

• Entity-year with COA that you want to copy (the template entity) has transactions that need to be deleted for the new entity. If the template entity has no transactions, you can skip the "To create a new entity with the same Chart of Accounts" steps below, copy and rename the entity-year data folder, and proceed to "To change the entity name" below.
• New entity is for same year as template entity. If you need a different year, just use the correct year when prompted.
• For this example, the template entity is in F:\FNdata\Smith_08\ and the new entity will be in F:\FNdata\Jones_08\
• You have at least two unused entities available in Navigator. You can do these steps with only one unused entity, but it is good practice always to have a spare. That makes changing entity names and deleting misnamed entities much easier.
• You are using Navigator 8.2. Earlier versions will be similar. Navigator 9.0 does not use entity-year data folders so some of the steps below won’t be needed.

1. Backup all your data, especially the template entity.
2. Open the template entity in Navigator.
3. Select Utilities | Begin a New Year. The Begin a New Year – Folders screen appears.
4. Verify that the backup folder is OK. Normally Navigator backs up the data to itself, which is pretty useless but also harmless. Just make sure Navigator isn’t overwriting some other valuable data. This step you should always pay attention to, even when you are doing a normal Begin a New Year.

	For example:
Backup folder: F:\FNdata\Smith_08\

5. Change the folder for New Year’s Data Files to the folder you want for the new entity. Navigator usually increments the year to the next year, but you probably want the same year.

   For example:
   If Navigator suggests: F:\FNdata\Smith_09\
   Change folder to: F:\FNdata\Jones_08\

6. Select Next. The Begin a New Year – Options screen appears.
7. Set the options:
   • Zero Budget Amounts
   • Reconciliation: Save Uncleared Transactions – Don’t check the box. You don’t want any transactions in the new entity, cleared or not.
   • Delete Unused Payees or Payors, Unused Accounts – If new entity will have many of the same accounts, payees, and payors as the old one, you might want to keep these unused ones too. Note that whether you check these or not, the accounts, payees, and payors that were used during the year by the template entity will appear in the new entity. This option only affects the unused ones.
   • Delete: Sold Investment Accounts – Check the box so those accounts will be deleted. You probably don’t want any of investment accounts, but you will have to delete them manually later.
   • Net Income: Zero Prior Years’ Net Income - Check the box. You don’t want any balances from the template in the new entity.
   • Tax year: Year Ending – Navigator usually increments the year to the next year, but you probably want the same year. Change the year to the correct year for the new entity.

     For example:
     If Navigator suggests: 2009
     Change to: 2008

8. Select Next.
9. Verify the backup and new year folders are correct.
10. Select Yes to continue. The Delete Unused Payees and Payors screen may appear.
11. Select Delete All.
12. Select Yes to confirm. The Delete Unused Accounts screen may appear.
13. Select Delete All.
14. Select Yes to confirm. The Investments Sold in Prior Years screen may appear.
15. Select Delete All.
16. Select Yes to confirm.
17. Select Next. The Begin a New Year confirmation screen appears.
18. Verify the paths and folder names are correct.
19. Select Yes. Another Begin a New Year confirmation screen appears.
20. Select Yes to open the new entity. Note the entity name at the top of the screen is still the template entity’s name. Verify the year at the top of the screen is correct. Verify the path at the top of the screen is correct.

To change the entity name:

1. Select File | Change Entity Name. The Select Type of Finances screen appears.
2. Select Individual or Business as appropriate for the new entity. Either the Indivdual. Trust, or Estate screen or the Business or Other Organization screen appears.
3. Enter the individuals’ names or the organization name. The Change Entity Name screen appears.
4. Enter the name that will appear at the top of reports. This name will also appear on the entity list and will count as on more entity in Navigator.

   For example: Jack Jones, Sr.

5. Select OK. A Financial Navigator screen appears showing the updated number of entities in use.
6. Select OK. You are back on the Navigator desktop.
7. Verify that the entity name at the top of the screen is now correct.

1. Select Accounts | Chart of Accounts to verify all the accounts are there. Note they have starting balances that all should be zero.
2. Select Utilities | Start Year Over Again. The Start Year Over Again – Folders screen appears.
3. Change the backup folder to a dummy folder. We don’t need a backup at this point, but Navigator insists.. Normally Navigator backs up the data to itself, but we are going to use the existing folder for the cleaned up data.

   	For example:
   If Navigator suggests as a backup folder: F:\FNdata\Jones_08\
   Change folder to: F:\FNdata\Jones_08Temp\

4. Change the folder for New Year’s Data Files to the same folder in which the new entity is already. Navigator may increment the year to the next year, but you probably want the same year.

   For example:
   If Navigator suggests: F:\FNdata\Jones_09\
   Change folder to: F:\FNdata\Jones_08\

5. Select Next. The Start Year Over Again – Options screen appears.
6. Set the options:
   • New Year’s Budget – Doesn’t matter since you zeroed it earlier.
   • Starting Balances – Select Zero Starting Balances.
   • Tax year: Year Ending – Verify the year is the correct year for the new entity.<\ul>
   • Select Next. The Start Year Over Again confirmation screen appears.
   • Verify the paths and folder names are correct.
   • Select Yes. Another Start Year Over Again confirmation screen appears.
   • Select Yes to open the new entity. You are back on the Navigator desktop.
   • Note the entity name at the top of the screen is still the template entity’s name. Verify the year at the top of the screen is correct. Verify the path at the top of the screen is correct.
   • Select Accounts | Chart of Accounts to verify all the accounts now have zero balances.

Note you cannot directly delete Categories and Groups. But they will disappear if you delete all the accounts in them. They will still be available in the Master Chart of Accounts.

To delete lots of unneeded accounts:

1. Backup the entity.
2. Select the first account to be deleted using your mouse.
3. Hit Delete on your keyboard. A Financial Navigator screen appears. Yes is already selected.
4. Hit Enter on your keyboard to confirm deletion.
5. Use the down arrow key on your keyboard to select the next account.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until all the accounts you want to delete in a Category are gone.
7. Go to step 2, selecting the first account to be deleted in the next Category.

1. Select File | Back Up | Back Up All Entities if your data hasn’t been backed up recently.
2. Open the old entity that you want to clone.
   • This process "clones" all years of the old entity, whether you need them or not. There is no way to clone a single year, unless you are starting with an entity that has a single year.
   • You can open any year in the old entity since all years will be cloned.
3. Select File | Save As.
4. Enter the name of the new entity.
5. Select OK. The new entity is now open in FN. You will be asked later to add it to the entity list.
6. Select File | Open and open the current year if it is not already open.
7. Select Utilities | Start Year Over Again. Starting year over again will remove all the transactions that were copied from the old entity.
   
8. Choose the budget amounts you want in New Year’s Budget part of the screen:
   • Budget Amounts from Last Year will not change the budget amounts. They will stay the same as the budget amounts already copied from the same year in the old entity, even though the option implies it is getting last year’s amounts. Think of the option as "Budget Amounts from This Year."
   • Actual Amounts from Last Year will set the budget amounts to the current year’s actual amounts. Because you are deleting all transactions, the actual amounts are $0 and this option has the same effect as the Zero Budget Amounts option. Think of the option as "Actual Amounts from This Year" or simply "Zero Budget Amounts."
   • Zero Budget Amounts will set the starting balances for the year to $0. This is probably the choice you want.
9. Choose the Starting Balances that you want:
   • Same Starting Balances will not change the starting balances. They will stay the same as the starting balances already copied from the same year from the old entity.
   • Zero Starting Balances will set the starting balances for the year to $0. This is probably the choice you want.
10. Change the Tax Year if you want to use a different fiscal year Beginning Month or a different Year Ending.
11. Select Next. A warning appears that all transactions will be deleted.
12. Select Yes since you do want to delete all transactions. A meter shows the progress in updating the accounts and a second message tells you it is complete.
13. Select OK.
14. Repeat steps 6-13 to delete transactions from prior years, if any. You probably will not be using the prior years at all for the new entity, so it is better to leave everything blank in those years to avoid confusion later. Select Zero Budget Amounts and Zero Starting Balances when prompted.

See also: Copy new entity from template and Cloning an entity

- David
FNI Technical Support