Everything financial in flatnumber — expenses, fees, budgets, reports — lives inside a financial year. Understanding how the year turns over explains most of what you see on the finance screens.
The year follows the calendar, not your meetings
Your first financial year ("Year 1") starts on the date you set when you created the association. Every following year starts on the same day, one year later.
The rollover is automatic:
- 30 days before the year ends, flatnumber prepares the next year and sends a heads-up to administrators who follow that alert.
- On the anniversary, the current year closes and the new one becomes active. The closing balance of the old year becomes the opening balance of the new one.
This happens whether or not the accounts have been approved at a meeting. That mirrors real life: accounts are usually approved months after the year they describe has ended.
What "closed" means
Once a year is closed:
- Its figures are final. Expenses in it can no longer be edited.
- You can still look at it at any time: choose it in the year selector to see its expenses, fees and report.
- If you find a mistake in it, you fix it with a correcting entry in the current year. The old year keeps saying what owners were told; the correction leaves a visible trace.
What carries over and what does not
| Carries over | Starts fresh |
|---|---|
| The balance (closing → opening) | The budget — every category starts at zero |
| Unpaid fees — a debt does not expire | The year's income and spending totals |
| Members, units, documents |
Good to know
You cannot end a year early. You can ask for next year to be prepared early (see Prepare next year early), but the switch still happens on the anniversary.
New entries always go into the current year, whatever date you put on them. If the date falls outside the year, you are warned, not blocked.
Common questions
Our accounting year should start on 1 January, but we joined in September. Set the start date accordingly when you set up the association. If you need to change it afterwards, the association settings have a Change financial year start date option — use it early, before much has been recorded.
Where did last year's expenses go?
Nowhere — switch the year selector to last year.