After you have opened a company, you can enter a new company start date. For example, you may have initially set the start date and fiscal year as of 1/1/2007. After you open the company, you decide that you would like to enter the opening bank balance as of 12/25/2006 to correspond to the statement date, and then enter transactions to the end of the year to have the year-end balance add up to the actual bank balance.

When you change the start date, Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 automatically creates a new fiscal year before the current fiscal year. If the new start date is more than a year before the first fiscal year, Office Accounting 2008 will create all additional fiscal years until the new starting date that you have entered is covered. For example, if your first fiscal year is 2007 and you enter a starting date in 2005, Accounting 2008 will create fiscal years for 2005 and 2006.

 Note   The length of the fiscal years that Accounting 2008 creates will be the same as the last existing fiscal year.

Change the company start date

1. On the Company menu, click Manage Fiscal Year.
2. In the Manage Fiscal Year dialog box, click Change Start Date.
3. In the Change Start Date dialog box, enter a new start date.
4. Click OK.