Financial Year End Closing – Only Open Year Error Message

Microsoft Dynamics GPI was recently doing some training for a new client and, when showing them how to do period and year end processing encountered an error message when trying to do the Financial Year End Closing (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu » Tools » Routines » Financial » Year End Closing);

Financial Year End Closing - You must set up a new financial year before you can close the only open year.

This had me stumped for a few minutes as there were Open Year calendars (Microsoft Dynamics GP menu » Tools » Setup » Company » Financial Periods) on the system for 2011, 2012 and 2013. Typically in the UK a financial year runs from 1st April to 31st March; but this isn’t a hard and fast rule. This particular client has a different financial year and the error message was being produced as there was a gap of one day between the end of 2011 and the start of 2012. Once the calendar was fixed, the Year End Closing could be run without issue.