Understanding Fiscal Date Pattern Setup
Fiscal date patterns represent the beginning date for the fiscal year and the ending date for each period in that year. The general ledger must have a calendar, or fiscal pattern, associated with each company in your organization. You can have several fiscal patterns if your companies have different year-end dates.
When you enter transactions, the system uses the general ledger date of each transaction to establish which period in the company's fiscal pattern to post. For example, if the fiscal year 2008 is July to June, then the ending date for period 01 would be July 31, 2008. Transactions are posted to periods in the Account Balances table (F0902).
he system uses the last day of the first period (period 1) to determine the fiscal year for all processing, including financial reports and all reports with processing options that enable you to specify the fiscal year. For example, if the fiscal year is July 2008 to June 2009 and the ending date for period 1 is July 31, 2008, the fiscal year is 2008.
You can use the regular fiscal date pattern (system-defined by the letter R) or define your own (represented by the letters A–N). The regular pattern includes 14 periods for:
12-period accounting
This type of accounting contains one period per month.
13-period accounting
This type of accounting contains one period per month, plus one period that is used only for adjustments.
14-period accounting
This type of accounting contains one period per month, plus two periods that are used only for adjustments.
4-4-5-period accounting
This type of accounting divides the fiscal year into four quarters with each quarter containing 13 weeks (4+4+5=13 weeks). The retail industry typically uses this date pattern so that they can compare accounting periods with exactly the same length. Months with 28, 30, or 31 days are not the same length and, therefore, do not provide an exact basis for comparison.
To ensure that transactions post to the correct fiscal period, observe these guidelines:
Set up fiscal periods for each fiscal year, including future years to which budget entries can be posted and prior years to which balances can be loaded.
The system does not create fiscal date patterns automatically.
Ensure that no gaps exist in the period ending dates within a specific pattern.
For example, you should not set up June 1 through June 30, and July 15 through July 31.
When you first set up fiscal patterns, define the prior year, the current year, and the following year for each pattern code.
Ensure that each period, even the extra audit adjustment periods, contains at least one day that is not included in any other period.
These period numbers and period end dates illustrate how you might set up periods 13 and 14 as special audit adjustment periods:
11 (November 30, 2008)
12 (December 29, 2008)
13 (December 30, 2008)
14 (December 31, 2008)
If you do not use periods 13 and 14 as audit adjustment periods, you can assign the same period end dates to periods 12, 13, and 14.
After you set up a fiscal date pattern for a company, you can assign the pattern to other companies. If your companies all use the same fiscal date pattern, set up the fiscal date pattern once and then assign it to all companies. You cannot set up a company until you set up the fiscal date pattern for the company. You can set up a fiscal date pattern without specifying a company.
You cannot set up more than one fiscal date pattern for the same fiscal year, which could happen with short years. For example, if you set up period 1 of 2008 to end on January 7, 2008, and period 1 of 2009 to end on December 31, 2008, the system considers both of these to be fiscal year 2008.
Typically, you should not change a fiscal date pattern unless you restructure your company. You cannot delete a fiscal date pattern if the pattern code and fiscal year exist together in the Company Constants table (F0010).
You can set up fiscal date patterns for the current fiscal year, the preceding fiscal year, and the next fiscal year.
Fiscal date patterns are stored in the Date Fiscal Patterns table (F0008).