Closing year in SL 2011 FP1 version 8.12.40821.00

I'm a new user of Dynamics. And was told by Consultant that in order to run any Jan 2019 reports, must first close year 2018. Which seems hard to believe. Typically year-end books are kept open for around 3 months, until our Audit Report is issued.

Is there a known workaround ? Would closing the month of Dec, but not the year, enable me to generate Jan 2019 reports ?

Thanks.