Year End Process
Closing off the Year
Before you can enter, for example, donations in 2026, you will need to close off the previous year (in this case 2025). In Silent Partner, closing is really more of a year end process. You are not closing off the year in an accounting sense. Rather, Silent Partner's Year End Process moves your current year forwards to 2026. If you haven't "closed off" 2025, Silent Partner thinks 2025 is still your "current year," so you need to run the Year End Process to tell Silent Partner to move ahead to 2026
You can always check on what your current year is either by clicking Lookup tables > Branch offices, where the current year is displayed, or by looking at the "Summary information" window for any donor, where the annual giving for each of the last six years is shown along with other donation info – the most recent year of the six shown is your current year.
However, until you have completed the Year End Process, you cannot enter donations for the new year. Until 2025 is closed, you can't do anything for 2026.
Closing off the year will not impede your ability to issue receipts, and Silent Partner will always let you make entries up to two calendar years back. If your current year is 2026, you can still enter and receipt transactions from 2025 and even 2024!
If you've been wondering why your January pre-authorized batches aren't showing up in the "batches to be posted" window, that's the reason: you need to close off the year!
To close off the previous calendar year, do the following:
- Do backup of Silent Partners’ data just before you close off (see instructions below).
- It's also a good idea to check for any new program updates to make sure you're using the most up to date version of Silent Partner (see instructions below).
- After creating your backup, go to your green screen, then click Maintenance > Year-end processing.
- Silent Partner will ask "Are you sure you want to close off the year 2025?" Answer Yes.
- You may get a message saying "Year 2025 cannot be closed off. There are still donations to be posted for batch(es)" and then the batch numbers of unposted batches. In that case, finish posting those batches and try again. Don't worry; after you close off 2025, you can still create new batches for the previous year.
- Alternatively, it may say "There are still receipts to be printed for 2025 -- close anyway?" It is quite safe to answer "Yes" here. You will still be able to print those receipts after closing off.
Backup your database
We recommend backing up regularly even if your server is backed up. There are a few reasons for this
- Silent Partner backups are really easy to restore, so there is no need to contact your IT department.
- Point-in-time for comparisons - it's easier to identify and restore records in the case of accidental deletion.
- Any time you go to make large changes (like mass edit) to the database, back it up! If you make a mistake, reversing it is just a few clicks away.
Here's how to make a backup. From the green screen, go to Maintenance > Backup and Restore > Backup files.
Next, select your backup options:
- Include donation batch archives, will also backup the excel copies of your posted backed, but will add to the size of the backup
- Save a backup: save the backup to the location specified above.
- Save Backup and Upload to Silent Partner Software: this will save your backup locally, but also send a copy to our servers
- Upload to Silent Partner; erase when done: this makes a backup, sends it to our servers and then removes the local copy. Great for saving space!
When your backup is completed successfully you will see this message.
Check for an update
To check for a program update, go to your main green screen, click Help > Check for program updates.
Click “Yes” to update the program. You’ll be prompted to restart Silent Partner to complete the update process.
Click OK. Silent Partner will close, and you can restart the program to complete the update. After restarting, Silent Partner will let you know that it will run a complete checkup.
Click OK to allow Silent Partner to proceed with its complete check-up process. Once the checkup is complete you can continue using Silent Partner as normal!
What happens after closing off the year?
Each donor's record is updated with their giving statistics. For example, the amount in the year-to-date-giving total field is transferred to the last-year-total-giving field, whose contents have been moved to the year-before-last-giving total field, and so on down the line. So if you had a donor whose "Summary Info" window previously showed something like this:
2024 459.83
2023 1650.00
2022 235.00
2021 0.00
2020 175.75
2019 1200.00
you would now see:
2025 0.00
2024 459.83
2023 1650.00
2022 235.00
2021 0.00
2020 175.75
If you have any issues or questions please feel free to call or email us!
Receipt corrections
If needed, use this article for handle any receipt corrections or to reissue receipts that were made in the previous calendar year
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