• Help in the Navigator program. Search for "begin" in the Help index.
• Navigator 8.0 Reference Guide and page 142 of the Navigator 8.0 Basic Training Guide.
• "Begin a New Year" User Forum at http://www.finnav.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=4. This is a great place to post any further questions by replying to an exiting topic or creating a new one.

Ideally, you enter all of the current year’s transactions, reconcile, and print reports before Begin a New Year. This is seldom practical since you need to write checks and run reports for the new year long before your receive final statements for the current year. Navigator allows you to Update Starting Balances so that changes in the current year are carried over to the new year. However, new accounts and changes to prior year actual income, expense amounts, and cost basis have to be entered manually in the new year.
The following steps assume:

• Your current year is 2007 and you are starting the new year 2008.
• Your books are for a calendar year.
• Your data is stored on a server at N:\FNData\.
• You name your data folders with the year at the end like Smith_06. See the topic "Folders with Year before Name" below if you name your folders with the year first (07 Smith) instead of at the end (Smith_07).

1. Reconcile all bank and brokerage accounts as of 12/31/07. If you have to Begin a New Year before the statements are available, the accounts should still be reconciled for the last statement received prior to rollover.
2. Back up your data. If you have many entities, it is easier to copy the entire Navigator data folder using Windows Explorer than to back up each entity-year individually in Navigator.
3. Select Utilities | Test & Correct Files | All the Above. Select Yes when asked if your data is backed up. Note any problems found and investigate if necessary.
4. Print the year-end reports that you need.
5. Select Transactions | Set Closed Months | Months Closed Through | December | OK. (Optional)
6. Repeat the above steps for the next entity, if you are doing these steps for multiple entities.
7. Back up your data again.

1. Open the entity in Navigator.
2. Select Utilities | Begin a New Year. The Begin a New Year – Folders screen appears.
3. Verify that the entity name, year, and current data file location are all what you expect.
4. Note the proposed location and file name of the backup. Usually Navigator will back up the data to the same folder in which the data is already. This does not actually create a new backup but is OK since you have already backed up your data. See the topic “Folders with Year before Name” below if you name your folders with the year first (07 Smith) instead of at the end (Smith_07).
5. Note the proposed location and file name of the new year's data folder. If your current year’s folder is named like Smith_07, Navigator will automatically increment the new folder to Smith_08.
6. Select Next. The Begin a New Year – Options screen appears.
7. Decide how to handle each option.
   • New Year's Budget - Select one of the options to describe your new year's budget data. If you are not entering budget data into the new file, we suggest that you select Actual Amounts from Last Year.
   • Reconciliation - Identify whether you want to include uncleared transactions from the old year in the new year's data files. We recommend that you select Save Uncleared Transactions so that accounts may be easily reconciled in the new year.
   • Delete - Check the appropriate boxes to remove sold investment accounts, and payees, payors, and accounts that have been unused for the past year. We recommend deleting all three.
   • Zero Prior Years’ Net Income - Check this box if you do not want the Net Income from the prior year to show in the balance sheet equity section. This feature is typically used when the net income of the entity from inception to date is not known. For each entity, this option should be used consistently from year-to-year.
   • Tax Year – Verify month and year are correct for the new year. Normally you do not need to change this.
8. Select Next. A Begin a New Year confirmation screen appears.
9. Verify that the paths and file names are correct and select Yes. The Delete Unused… screens appear if you selected that option.
10. Select Delete All on the Delete Unused Payees or Payors screen then select Continue
    –or–
    Select Continue to delete none
    –or–
    Select a single payee or payor, then select Delete, then repeat to delete some but not all unused payees or payors, and then select Continue.
11. Use the same process to delete unused Accounts.
12. Use the same process to delete sold accounts or Select OK if there are none.
13. Review the Begin a New Year screen and select OK. The new year's files are open and ready for use. Navigator displays the new year's date and folder at the top of the screen.

Folders with Year before Name

If you name your folders with the year first (07 Smith) instead of at the end (Smith_07), Navigator does not automatically create the best names for the backup and new year’s folders. Use the instructions below instead of steps 4 and 5 above to begin a new year.

These steps assume your data folders are named like 07 Smith. If you use some other convention, adjust accordingly. In any case, pay close attention to the folder names so it is clear to you and other users which folders are backup, current year, and new year.

To adjust the folder names:

1. For "The current year's data files will be backed up to:" delete the _07 at the end so that the backup folder name looks like 07 Smith. Navigator will back up the data to the same folder in which the data is already. This does not actually create a new backup but is OK since you have already backed up your data.
2. For "The new year's data files will be created on:" change the 07 at the beginning of the folder name to 08 so the folder name looks like 08 Smith.

- David
FNI Support