Stock -VS- Fixed assets in an accounting application

1) Fixed assets and Stock Assets are not the same thing.  One depreciates over time, a Stock on the other hand will fluctuate.  From a developers (and accountants) point of view the Fixed Asset value is maintained by periodic adjustments to a Contra Asset account that usually depreciates over a period of time, usually on a proscribed schedule.  For the developer isn't merely another kind of jornal entry that is made on a periodic basis as the value of the Fixed Asset depreciates.

2) To close an Accounting period you usually have a table of Accounting periods and fields to designate whether that period is open or closed.  Usually you also have fields to designate whether specific modules (AR, AP, GL, etc.) are opened or closed and the developer insures that if you close the period in general that all modules are closed as well.  The developer will usually create code as well to respond to the event of an accounting period being closed to reccaculate the beginning balances of each general ledger account so that the reports like the Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet and the like don't have to go back through the General Ledger table (all the way back to the beginning of time) to determine what the balance of a specific account is.  For performance reasons it's much faster to start with the months beginning balance for each account and then just add in the GL transactions that have transpired since the period selected (using of course the most recent beginning blanaces belonging to a closed period.  Of course we also insure that the accounting periods are closed in Order, Period 3 can't be open if Period 4 is closed.  There's also an End of Year Period that one usually creates that has special code attached to it to sum up all Income Statement account balances for the here and generate an end of year joranl entry to zero out the balance of each Income Statement account and roll over whatever the difference is into the Retained Earnings account.

These types of accounting principles/concepts are pretty much Accounting 101 so just about any accountant should be able to describe in general terms to the developer how the dollars and cents should be reflected on the books.  A developer worth their salt should be able to translate that into a program that will perform as required.  The one good thing about accounting is that there are well established rules on how it works and it generally lends itself very well to the way data is stored and retrieved.  As a developer I tend to find the other requirements of a business to be far more changing.  The work a developer has to do to build an accounting system by comparison isn't nearly so rough although I've found some developers have some difficulty following what the needs of the accountant are and in other cases I've found that some accountants have difficulty articulating their needs to the developer since so many of the accounting concepts like these are things they have long since taken for granted.  Even so, once the developer understands what the needs are they should have little dificulty building it.

>> reports like the Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet
>> and the like don't have to go back through the General Ledger
>> table (all the way back to the beginning of time)

To sort of amplify on that, some fixed assets, such as buildings, have a 30 year depreciation period. The average time a company sticks with the same accounting SW is between 3 and 10 years.

>> These types of accounting principles/concepts are
>> pretty much Accounting 101

Actually I think that's the 201 course level, but I was lucky enough to miss that. ;-)

jimpen:
Thanks for the tips.
Rick_Rickards:
The closure of an accounting period is clearer now. The Fixed Asset - Stock Asset part : not so much.
May be i better give a little more details about the problem at hand.
I am writting an accounting application to be used by a used car dealership company (actually it is a whole management system, but it is the accounting part that is creating a problem)

This company buys and sells used vehicles and each item (vehicle) is individualized such that it have its own price, cost, registation number, color etc.
The company sometimes converts some of the vehicles to its own use and then some time later..back again i.e.puts them back in their stock for sale.

I can well keep track of this back and forth movement in my application, it is the accounting aspect, GL accounts to be used etc that is not very clear.