Your accounting years: the name people use for each year, its short code, and the first and last day it covers.
When to use it
When setting the company up, before any entry is made. After that, once a year, to add the coming year before it starts.
Before you start
You need an admin role. Know the exact first and last day of the year, because everything below depends on those two dates.
Where to find it
Setup > Calendar Setup > Fiscal Year.
The fields on this screen
| Field (on screen) | What to enter | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal Year | The year as people write it, such as 2081/2082. It is what the fiscal year picker shows. | Yes |
| FY Code | Short fiscal-year code, for example 8283 | Yes |
| Start Date | First day of this fiscal year. It should be the day after the previous year ends, or a day belongs to no year. | Yes |
| End Date | Last day of this fiscal year. A gap before the next year starts leaves entries no year-end report will total. | Yes |
How it works
A year saved here is offered at once wherever a year has to be chosen. Everything downstream uses its two dates as a date range.
- The workspace year picker lists these entries. Its label is built from the FY Code first, falling back to the full Fiscal Year text, followed by the start and end dates. So a blank or wrong code is what users see all day.
- Reports turn the year a user is entitled to into a date range using these two dates, and limit the report to it. Move a boundary and the same report over the same entries returns a different set.
- Opening Balances dates its voucher the first day of the year you load into.
- Year-end close works over the year's range. When it closes, it writes a lock covering exactly that stretch of dates.
The dates must butt up against each other. The start of one year should be the day after the end of the previous one. A single day left between two years belongs to no year. Entries dated on it save without complaint, but no year-end report totals them and no year picker reaches them. An overlap is just as bad the other way, because the same entry then falls into two years.
Changing the dates on a year that already has entries does not move or re-date anything. It changes what every later report counts as belonging to that year, including a year you have already closed and reported on.
Tips and common mistakes
- Add next year before the year turns. An entry dated after the last year on this list falls outside every range.
- Fill in the short code. It is the part of the label users read in the year picker.
- Check the two dates against the year you are actually adding, not against the previous entry copied forward.
Related guides
See also Opening Balances, Fiscal Period Lock, BS Month and Trial Balance.