1858950 - Error Message Raised when Closing January

You are trying to close January and received this error:
Closing of period 001 not possible: Previous fiscal year not closed.
The previous year is already close, the Carry Forward Posted as well Result Posted are already checked under Edit Fiscal Years.

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Steps for the error message being raised:

1.   Go to General Ledger work center
2.   Go to Common Tasks
3.   Go to Open and Close Periods View
4.   Select January which is the year you want to close
5.   Press Close Period button
6.   Error:
Closing of period 001 not possible: Previous fiscal year not closed.

Steps to check the details on the closing process:

1.   Go to General Ledger work center
2.   Go to Master Data View
3.   Go to Sets of Books and Assigned Companies subview
4.   Select the company ID
5.   Press button Edit Fiscal Years
6.   It is possible see the previous year has the bellow details:
Fiscal Year Status: 3 – Blocked
Carry Forward Posted: Check box selected
Result Posted: Check box selected

1.   Go to General Ledger work center
2.   Go to Common Tasks
3.   Go to Open and Close Periods View
4.   Select January of the year you want to close
5.   Details:
Period Status: 1 - Not Blocked
First Allowed Step: 010 - Operational postings
Last Allowed Step: 080 - Adjusting entries for income stat. by nature of expenses

6. Select December of the previous year
7. Details:
Period Status: 3 – Blocked
First Allowed Step: 990 - Closing balance
Last Allowed Step: 990 - Closing balance

The selected criteria for the First Allowed Step and Last Allowed Step are not correct for December and January.
Due to this the Balance Carryforward runs must be reversed in order to allow again the changes.

The correct status for December should be:
First Allowed Step: 001 - Opening balance
Last Allowed Step: 991 - Profit and loss calculation of retained earning

The correct status for January should be:
First Allowed Step: 001 - Opening balance
Last Allowed Step: 020 - Closing entries

As the Balance carryforward has two steps:
Balance Carryforward Step 1: Carry Forward G/L Account Balances
Balance Carryforward Step 2: Calculate and Carry Forward Profit/Loss

To be able to change the First and Last Allowed Step of December you must open this month.
If you try open December the button Open Period is graeyest, because you already performed the Balance Carryforward run.
So you need to reverse the Balance Carryforward for the previous year processing in the reverse order it was initially executed (step 2 has to be reversed first then step 1).

After reversing, you should be able to open December, and then change the First Allowed Step and Last Allowed Step as bellow:
First Allowed Step: 001 - Opening balance
Last Allowed Step: 991 - Profit and loss calculation of retained earning

Re-run the Balance Carryforward run previously reversed (step 1 then step 2).
And then close again previous fiscal year – December.

Balance Carryforward, Closing period , KBA , SRD-FIN-GL , General Ledger , How To