Administration: AR Month End Close

You can use the AR Month End Close feature to customize a closing date for your practice's monthly closing schedule. For clients who do not customize a closing date, NextGen® Office automatically performs a month end close on the last day of the month. The close process automatically occurs at 11:59 PM PT on the selected close day.  

Our close process centers around the ledger date. If your practice closes after the last day of the month, but you do not backdate the ledger date for the majority of overlapping transactions into the closed month, we recommend closing on the last day of the month.

• Overlapping transactions: Applied transactions created from the start of the new month until the current month’s closing date, but with a ledger date in the new month.
• Example: Month end close date for May is June 5. Transactions posted from June 1 through June 5 with a ledger date in June are overlapping transactions.

Purpose of a Month End Close

The purpose of a month end close is to lock down the ledger date of financial transactions for the month. A ledger date can no longer be backdated into the closed month once the month has been closed. The process will snapshot charge, payment, and adjustment applied transactions to establish static monthly totals. The snapshot also includes the ending AR for the current month, which will be used as the starting AR for the following month. These totals can be reviewed in the AR Roll Forward reports.

Restrictions/Recommendations

• Only super users can set up or edit a closing schedule.
• The month end closing date can only be extended to the 7th day of the following month.
• The system will not calculate the AR for the month until after the month end closing date has passed at 11:59 PM PT.
• If your practice closes after the last day of the month, but you do not backdate the ledger date for the majority of overlapping transactions into the closed month, we recommend closing on the last day of the month.
• To prevent reporting imbalances it is recommended to not start activity for a new month until the old month is closed. This will allow for flexibility with the date type used when generating reports, while helping to enable various balancing processes.
• Practices always have the choice to operate closing processes outside of these recommendations. Other common closing processes include Deposit Date, Date of Service, and Created Date. Regardless of the process our recommendations will help with balancing requirements.

Navigate to AR Month End Close

1. Click Admin on the menu bar.
2. Under Insurance and Billing, click AR Month End Close.

Set Up the Month End Closing Schedule

You can set up your practice's closing date by creating a recurring schedule. The following options are available:

• Last day of the month (this is the default if you do not set up a schedule)
• The 1st to 7th day of the next month
• The first Sunday to Saturday of the next month

Set Up the Closing Schedule for the First Time

1. Click .

2. Select the desired option.
3. If you are selecting a closing date other than the last day of the month, you must also select the recurrence from the select menu.
4. Click Save Schedule.

The following example illustrates a closing schedule set up for the first Friday of the next month. The right side of the screen shows what the next closing date will be.

Edit the Month End Closing Schedule

The page shows the current closing schedule and the next month's schedule closing date with options to:

• Edit the closing schedule
• Edit the next closing date

Edit the Closing Schedule's Recurrence

1. Click .
2. Make your changes and then click Save Schedule.

Changes are reflected on the right side.

Edit the Next Month's Closing Date

You can edit next month's closing date; however, this does not change the established closing schedule.

1. Click the edit  icon.
2. Select a new date from the calendar and then click Update.

Accounts Receivable Considerations

AR Roll Forward Reports

The AR Roll Forward reports – are designed to track balance-changing transactions (for both insurance and patient) by ledger date and report on the months starting and ending AR total.

AR Calculation

If your practice does not want to use the AR Roll Forward report, continue working as you have and ignore the Ledger Date and AR Month End Close features. 

The current month's (for example, July) month end closing date will establish the starting AR for the next month (for example, August). Any July month transactions must be backdated by July's month end closing date.

Example

If the July month end closing date is set for August 4, and you have transactions that need to be backdated to July, you must back date those transactions by August 4 for them to report in the starting AR for August.

(Charges + Payments + Adjustments + Write-offs that are present on the ledger as of July 31) + ledger date transactions backdated for July = August's starting AR

Any ledger dates dated for August, entered in before the July month end closing date, will be reported in the August month end close.

Ledger Date

You cannot select a ledger date for a closed month or forward date a ledger date. As a result, you must confirm that the ledger dates are properly dated; else, the transaction will be reported in the next month.

Example

If you are entering charges for August on September 1, the ledger date at the bottom of the Charge Entry page should be a date in August.

The ledger date cannot be changed after it has been entered. If you make a mistake, the transaction would be reported in the selected month and each month will still balance properly. 

 

See Also: 
AR Roll Forward Reports