Each fiscal year must reside in a unique folder (directory) on your computer or network server, so there is a small, one-time-per-year procedure you must go through for each company whose cafeteria plans you administer. The good news is that starting a new fiscal year with Fast-Flex Plus is painless!

Please refer to "Start a New Fiscal Year" in the manual on page 38. Next, go to "Start New Fiscal Year" (Main Menu/File/New Fiscal Year) in Fast-Flex Plus. Follow the on-screen instructions to create a new directory (named WLMART10, for example, in 2010) to hold the NEW fiscal year's data. Your current employee database (minus terminated employees - see page 52 in the manual to get rid of terminated employees) and your existing "company setup" data will be automatically copied to this new directory by Fast-Flex Plus.

However, even though you have created a new data folder for the next fiscal year, you are still actually working with employees and transaction data in the current fiscal year until you go to Main Menu/File/ Select Company and choose the new fiscal year data folder that you just created.

In other words, if you go immediately to Main Menu/File/Company Setup and start to enter new fiscal year dates, you are actually changing the dates of the current fiscal year. This will cause a mess - you will still show last year's data, but the changed fiscal year dates will cause the program to think it is in a new year.

To enter data into the new fiscal year folder that you have created, you first need to go to Main Menu/File/Select Company and choose the new fiscal year's data folder. Next, go to Main Menu/File/Company Setup and enter the appropriate fiscal year dates. Review the scheduled employee withholdings (see page 51 in the manual to speed up this process by "Batch" updating employee records). If all is well, you are finally ready to update withholdings for the first pay period of the fiscal year.

You should always verify which fiscal year's data you are working in by looking at the yellow data path that appears on the main menu.

That's all there is to it! You can view any fiscal year's data at any time by selecting "Main Menu/File/Select Company".