Everything financial in flatnumber, expenses, fees, budgets and 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, and its budget can be read but not changed.
- You can still look at it at any time: choose it in the year selector to see its expenses, fees, budget 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.
Closing the year's accounts
The rollover closes the year; it does not decide what to do with the result. Once the year is closed, the administrator opens the year's report and chooses Close year accounts. flatnumber shows what the year really cost each unit, by its shares, against what the unit was billed, and offers two options:
- Settle per unit: each unit gets an adjustment in the new year. A unit that paid too little gets an extra fee; one that paid too much gets a credit, to use against its next fees or to be refunded.
- Keep it in the fund: nothing for the owners. The difference stays in the association's account, and you can move a surplus to another fund.
The choice is usually taken at the annual meeting, and it can be recorded with it. Nothing is applied until the administrator confirms.
What carries over and what does not
| Carries over | Starts fresh |
|---|---|
| The balance (closing → opening) | The budget — every line starts at zero |
| Unpaid fees — a debt does not expire | The year's income and spending totals |
| Credits from the year-end settlement | The cash cushion, which you set per year |
| Members, units, shares, 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.
Next year's budget can be set, approved and even issued before the year starts. Fees issued early use today's balance as an estimate of the opening balance, and the next issue corrects the difference.
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 let you change the start date while the association still has a single financial year, and only until the first fees or expenses make a change risky. Do it early.
Where did last year's expenses go?
Nowhere. Switch the year selector to last year.
The year closed but the owners have not approved the accounts yet. That is normal. The figures are final; the meeting approves them afterwards and decides the settlement. See Prepare the annual meeting.