Tax Period Posting Changes

Important:

This section summarizes the tax period posting changes as of Version 2013 Release 2.

If you are currently using quarters or years as your lowest tier of tax periods instead of months, or if you have set up periods in mixed mode, be aware that as of NetSuite 2013.2, an Is Posting box has been added to the tax period record for quarters and years. You will be required to define the quarter or year as either posting or non-posting. If there is a quarter or year without children (months or base periods), and you want to use it for tax reporting, then you must make sure that the Is Posting box is checked on the tax period record. On the Manage Tax Periods page, you can identify posting periods by their status icons. Non-posting periods do not have status icons.

Mixed mode posting means that within the same period, there are transactions that were posted both to a period and to its parent period. For example, if your tax period June 2013 is a child of the period Q3 2013, and you did not set up July and August tax periods, then when you close the June 2013 tax period, future transactions during the same quarter will be posted to the Q3 2013 tax period. Transactions with a July or August date will be posted to Q3 2013. Any June 2013 transaction posted after the closure of the June 2013 tax period will also get reported in the Q3 tax period.

From NetSuite 2013.2 onwards, it is no longer be possible to add children to a posting period. Therefore, the ability to set up mixed mode periods has been discontinued. However, existing mixed mode periods will remain posting. The system looks at the last mixed mode posting date and determines that after that date, it is no longer possible to create mixed mode periods. Before this last mixed mode posting date, any period with transactions already posted to it will remain posting, and any period that does not have children will remain posting.

For all existing mixed modes, both the parent and children are posting, and both can be closed on a per subsidiary basis. If you close all child periods of a subsidiary, and the last child has the same end date as the parent, then the parent period will also be closed for that subsidiary.

The tax period assigned to a transaction is determined by the transaction date (applicable only if tax reporting is NOT set to cash basis). The system assigns the tax period in which the transaction date belongs, provided that the tax period is open. If the transaction date is within a tax period that is already closed, the system assigns the next open tax period. For example, if you have a transaction dated June 30, 2013 and your June 2013 tax period is either closed or does not exist, then the transaction is posted to the next tax period that is open, such as July 2013.

If you have overlapping posting tax periods that were set up prior to Version 2013 Release 2, the system chooses the lowest level period as the posting period if both periods are open. For example, if you have a transaction dated June 1, 2013, the system will choose June 2013 as the posting tax period for this transaction if both June 2013 and its parent Q3 2013 are posting and open.

As of NetSuite 2013.2, the order of assignment is by start date, and then by the lowest tier periods. If there are no months set up, then the transaction will be assigned to a quarter, and if there is no quarter, then it will be assigned to a year, provided that they are posting.

If both an open quarter and an open base period exist, then the transaction will be assigned to the one that is earliest. If no quarter exists, then the transaction will be assigned to an open base period, not the year period. A transaction will be posted to a year period, only if there is no base period or quarter period.

In addition, the ability to create adjustment tax periods has been removed. Previously, it was possible to set up a year with a one-day adjustment tax period, and it was also possible to define a tax base period as an adjustment period. In NetSuite 2013.2, the One-day year-End Adj. Period box and the Period is Adjustment box are no longer available. Note that if you already have adjustment tax periods set up in your account before 2013.2, those periods are retained, and the checked Period is Adjustment box is displayed on the period page as read-only.

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