End of financial year: closing transactions
"I'm not sure there's a good reason to do a ""closing the books"" ceremony for personal finance accounting. (And you're not only wanting to do that, but have a fiscal year that's different from the calendar year? Yikes!) My understanding is that usually this process is done for businesses to be able to account for what their ""Retained Earnings"" and such are for investors and tax purposes; generally individuals wouldn't think of their finances in those terms. It's certainly not impossible, though. Gnucash, for example, implements a ""Closing Books"" feature, which is designed to create transactions for each Income and Expenses account into an end-of-year Equity Retained Earnings account. It doesn't do any sort of closing out of Assets or Liabilities, however. (And I'm not sure how that would make any sense, as you'd transfer it from your Asset to the End-of-year closing account, and then transfer it back as an Opening Balance for the next year?) If you want to keep each year completely separate, the page about Closing Books in the Gnucash Wiki mentions that one can create a separate Gnucash file per year by exporting the account tree from your existing file, then importing that tree and the balances into a new file. I expect that it makes it much more challenging to run reports across multiple years of data, though. While your question doesn't seem to be specific to Gnucash (I just mention it because it's the accounting tool I'm most familiar with), I'd expect that any accounting program would have similar functionality. I would, however, like to point out this section from the Gnucash manual: Note that closing the books in GnuCash is unnecessary. You do not need to zero out your income and expense accounts at the end of each financial period. GnuCash’s built-in reports automatically handle concepts like retained earnings between two different financial periods. In fact, closing the books reduces the usefulness of the standard reports because the reports don’t currently understand closing transactions. So from their point of view it simply looks like the net income or expense in each account for a given period was simply zero. And that's largely why I'm just not sure what your goals are. If you want to look at your transactions for a certain time, to ""just focus on the range of years I'm interested in for any given purpose"" as you say, then just go ahead and run the report you care about with those years as the dates. The idea of ""closing books"" comes from a time when you'd want to take your pile of paper ledgers and go put them in storage once you didn't need to refer to them regularly. Computers now have no challenges storing ""every account from the beginning of time"" at all, and you can filter out that data to focus on whatever you're looking for easily. If you don't want to look at the old data, just don't include them in your reports. I'm pretty sure that's the ""better way to keep the books manageable""."
At the end of the year, the mutual fund company sends you a statement like any other investment and it has a bunch of boxes that you copy into your tax return software.  Then you just check the box that says 'tax-exempt' and you're done. Close-end funds just means there's a fixed number of shares available, so if you want to buy some you must purchase from other existing owners, typically through an exchange. Open-end funds mean the company providing the shares is still selling them, so you can buy them directly from the company.  Some can also be traded on exchanges as well. A government official said that the e-filing website had seen overloading due to last-minute filings. The last date for filing the income tax returns (ITRs) has been extended to 5th of August 2017 for the financial year 2016-17, the original deadline was 31st of July, 2017. I know some companies or entities have large incomes or expenses at certain times of the year, and like to close their books after these large events.  For example where I work,  the primary seasonal income comes after summer, so our fiscal year ends at the last days of October.  This gives the accountants enough time to collect all the funds, reconcile whatever they have to, pay off whatever they have to and get working on a budget for the next year sooner than a calendar year would. There also might be tax reasons.  To get all of your income at the beginning of your fiscal year, even if that is in the middle of the calendar year would allow a company to plan large deductible investments with more certainty.  I am not to sure of the tax reasons. My grandfather owned a small business, and I asked him that very question.  His answer was that year-end closeout is very time-consuming, both before and after  EOY (end of year), and that they didn't want to do all that around Christmas and New Year. Reading IRS Regulations section 15a.453-1(c) more closely, I see that this was a contingent payment sale with a stated maximum selling price. Therefore, at the time of filing prior years, there was no way of knowing the final contingent payment would not be reached and thus the prior years were filed correctly and should not be amended. Those regulations go on to give an example of a sale with a stated maximum selling price where the maximum was not reached due to contingency and states that in such cases: When the maximum [payment] amount is subsequently reduced, the gross profit ratio will be recomputed with respect to payments received in or after the taxable year in which an event requiring reduction occurs. However, in this case, that would result in a negative gross profit ratio on line 19 of form 6252 which Turbo Tax reports should be a non-negative number.  Looking further in the regulations, I found an example which relates to bankruptcy and a resulting loss in a subsequent year: For 1992 A will report a loss of $5 million attributable to the sale, taken at the time determined to be appropriate under the rules generally applicable to worthless debts. Therefore, I used a gross profit ratio of zero on line 19 and entered a separate stock sale not reported on a 1099-B as a worthless stock on Form 8949 as a capital loss based upon the remaining basis in the stock sold in an installment sale.  I also included an explanatory statement with my return to the IRS stating: In 2008, I entered into an installment sale of stock. The sale was a contingent payment sale with a stated maximum selling price. The sales price did not reach the agreed upon maximum sales price due to some contingencies not being met. According to the IRS   Regulations section 15a.453-1(c) my basis in the stock remains at $500 in 2012 after the final payment. Rather than using a negative gross profit ratio on line 19 of form 6252, I'm using a zero ratio and treating the remaining basis as a schedule-D loss similar to worthless stock since the sale is now complete and my remaining basis is no longer recoverable. If the underlying is currently moving as aggressively as stated, the broker would immediately forcibly close positions to maintain margin.  What securities are in fact closed depends upon the internal algorithms. If the equity in the account remains negative after closing all positions if necessary, the owner of the account shall owe the broker the balance.  The broker will close the account and commence collections if the owner of the account does not pay the balance quickly. Sometimes, brokers will impose higher margin requirements than mandated to prevent the above eventuality. Brokers frequently close positions that violate internal or external margin requirements as soon as they are breached. Cart's answer is basically correct, but I'd like to elaborate: A futures contract obligates both the buyer of a contract and the seller of a contract to conduct the underlying transaction (settle) at the agreed-upon future date and price written into the contract. Aside from settlement, the only other way either party can get out of the transaction is to initiate a closing transaction, which means:  The party that sold the contract buys back another similar contract to close his position.  The party that bought the contract can sell the contract on to somebody else. Whereas, an option contract provides the buyer of the option with the choice of completing the transaction.  Because it's a choice, the buyer can choose to walk away from the transaction if the option exercise price is not attractive relative to the underlying stock price at the date written into the contract.  When an option buyer walks away, the option is said to have expired. However – and this is the part I think needs elaboration – the original seller (writer) of the option contract doesn't have a choice.  If a buyer chooses to exercise the option contract the seller wrote, the seller is obligated to conduct the transaction.  In such a case, the seller's option contract is said to have been assigned.  Only if the buyer chooses not to exercise does the seller's obligation go away.  Before the option expires, the option seller can close their position by initiating a closing transaction.  But, the seller can't simply walk away like the option buyer can. "Assuming these are standardized and regulated contracts, the short answer is yes.  In your example, Trader A is short while Trader B is long.  If Trader B wants to exit his long position, he merely enters a ""sell to close"" order with his broker. Trader B never goes short as you state.  He was long while he held the contract, then he ""sold to close"". As to who finds the buyer of Trader B's contract, I believe that would be the exchange or a market maker.  Therefore, Trader C ends up the counterparty to Trader A's short position after buying from Trader B.  Assuming the contract is held until expiration, Trader A is responsible for delivering contracted product to Trader C for contracted price.  In reality this is generally settled up in cash, and Trader A and Trader C never even know each other's identity." * Absolutely agree with /u/IsAnAlpaca  * You /must/ not agree to this without seeing his balance sheet. * That means assets and liabilities, but also ask for the last 12 months' cash flow * Inability or unwillingness to provide any of those things is a HUGE no-go red flag. Yes this is possible. The most likely tool to use in this case would be a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). This is a line of credit for which the full amount is backed by home equity (difference between market and book prices). Most likely your financial institution will apply a factor to this collateral to account for various risks which will reduce the maximum amount that can be taken as a line of credit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_line_of_credit Generally stock trades will require an additional Capital Gains and Losses form included with a 1040, known as Schedule D (summary) and Schedule D-1 (itemized).  That year I believe the maximum declarable Capital loss was $3000--the rest could carry over to future years. The purchase date/year only matters insofar as to rank the lot as short term or long term(a position held 365 days or longer), short term typically but depends on actual asset taxed then at 25%, long term 15%.  The year a position was closed(eg. sold) tells you which year's filing it belongs in. The tiny $16.08 interest earned probably goes into Schedule B, typically a short form. The IRS actually has a hotline 800-829-1040 (Individuals)  for quick questions such as advising which previous-year filing forms they'd expect from you.  Be sure to explain the custodial situation and that it all recently came to your awareness etc. Disclaimer: I am no specialist. You'd need to verify everything I wrote; it was just from personal experience with the IRS and taxes. "This may be closed as not quite PF, but really ""startup"" as it's a business question.  In general, you should talk to a professional if you have this type of question, specifics like this regarding your tax code. I would expect that as a business, you will use a proper paper trail to show that money, say 1000 units of currency, came in and 900 went out. This is a service, no goods involved. The transaction nets you 100, and you track all of this. In the end you have the gross profit, and then business expenses. The gross amount, 1000, should not be the amount taxed, only the final profit." "Plenty!  Following are just a few: For things like RESP and RRSP which have an ""end"" date; as you or your children age, you should be migrating to less speculative investments and more secure ones.  When children are young, for example, you might be in a ""growth"" type fund.  Later on, you would likely want to switch that to an ""income"" fund, which is also more conservative and less likely to lose principal. Are you getting the best benefit from your credit cards?  Is there another card with benefits that you would get more ""back"" from using?  Is that fee-based Air miles card worth it?  Is cash-back better for you? If you have regular investment withdrawals, can you increase them?  Do you like the plan they are going in to?  Similarly look over any other long-term debt repayment.  Student loans, car loans, mortgage.  What is coming up this year, what is ""ending"".  If, for example, car payment will end, how will you earmark that money, so it just does not disappear into general funds. While you could go over things like these more often, once a year should be plenty often to keep tabs and not obsess. Good Luck!" Looking at your dates, I think I see a pattern.  It appears that your statement closing date is always 17 business days before the last business day of the month.  For example, if you start at May 31 and start counting backwards, skipping Saturdays, Sundays, and May 30 (Memorial Day), you'll see that May 5 is 17 business days before May 31.  I cannot explain why Bank of America would do this.  If you ask them, let us know what they say. If it bothers you, find another bank.  I do most of my banking (checking, savings, etc.) with a local credit union. Their statements end on the last day of the month, every month without fail. (Very nice, in my opinion.) I have two credit cards with nationally known banks, and although those statements end in the middle of the month, they are consistently on the same date every month. (One of them is on the 13th; the other date I can't recall right now.) You are right, a computer does the work, and your statement date should be able to fall on a weekend without trouble. Even when these were assembled by hand, the statement date could still be on a weekend, and they just wouldn't write it up until the following Monday.  You should be able to find another bank or credit union that does this.