Forms 1065 and 565 and their Schedules K-1 need ending values from the previous year’s forms for balance sheet and capital accounts beginning values. In Pan 6, I could open the previous year’s files as “old Form 1065”, etc., and close them after copying over the values. It looks like in Pan X, I have to open the old files and save them under a different name, do the data transfer, then delete them. Is this correct?
The openas statement is not available in Panorama X.
It sounds like you are saying you have two databases with the same name, but in different folders. In that case, I wouldn’t open and save the old files, I would simply rename them. You could either do that manually in the Finder, or you could use the filerename statement to automate that in a procedure. You could even rename the file, open it and transfer whatever data you need, then close and rename it back.
Actually, I think a better way to do this would be to give each file a prefix or suffix with the the year, for example 2024 Form 1065. In fact, I do exactly that for ProVUE’s yearly tax preparation, so I practice what I preach. That makes it easy to open multiple years at the same time, which is sometimes convenient, and also leaves no doubt as to what is in each file. It does make it a bit extra of work if you need to have relationships between multiple files, but I think it’s worth it.
Your customer service is remarkable. I use the same file names for accounting and tax files and store them in a folder for each accounting year going back to 1992. To fill in the balance sheet beginning values in Form 1065, there are 27 lookup functions. Likewise for Form 565. If I renamed the files like you suggest, I have 54 lines of code to revise each year along with any line number changes IRS and FTB make. My way eliminates that work. Plus in my system, accounting files can’t be modified after April 15 unless you set the date back in System settings. I don’t need to compare multiple years of data bu if I did, I could just append the archive files to the current year as they all have a accounting year field to differentiate them.
Greg, it would help me if you could give and example of maybe 4 of those 54 lines of code that would have to be revised. That is, what they are, and what they’d need to be changed to.
Its seems you are dealing with things in year increments and I’m pretty sure that new increment number can be adjusted automatically.
For example, If you are using LookUp functions for specifically named databases, the names of databases could be calculated rather than explicity specified.
Also - though this is far more technical - “LookUp”, though still useful, is pretty old technology - Pan6 days and earlier. At some point, it might be worth looking at the new ways to transfer data.
Also, are you saying the current procedures don’t have to be revised if IRS and FTB make changes? Do those changes happen every year or only occasionally? For example, I had to revise a CMS-1500 form to allow for an increased number of (medical) procedures. But that was a “One-Time” thing (until the powers that be decide to change it again), not a yearly event.
A while back, I had a task of bringing over a lot of data via lookups. It took over 8 hours. Once I tried a PanX technique, it took a few seconds.
We all know, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” and your routines have worked for years. But sometimes revisions, though painful at the time, provide longer satisfaction. It’s just that when I read, “I have 54 lines of code to revise each year …” my eyebrow sort of rises up … because file names can be calculated.
I know that the parameters of the lookup function are all functions themselves. I converted all of my business files to Panorama in the early 1990’s when computers were way slower that today… Using functions as parameters slowed down the computer so I only did it when absolutely necessary. By saving accounting files in a folder named for the year, eg., “2020”, I could just replicate the folder for the next year or duplicate it for another business activity or customer. I use a Main Menu file to store company information, computer system setups and read/write privileges, log in users, set file access passwords and passwords for procedures within files, initialize variables and to open all Panorama files. My files don’t work if opened from the Finder.