Fiscal Year Start Month
A business measures itself over a financial year — a twelve-month stretch at the end of which it works out its profit, files its accounts and pays its tax. Here's the part newcomers are often surprised by: that year doesn't have to run January to December. A UK company commonly runs April to March; an Australian one, July to June. The entity's Fiscal Year Start Month tells REDA which month the year begins, and that one setting shapes the whole reporting calendar.
Access you'll need. Setting an entity's fiscal year start (and generating accounting periods) requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view them but not change them.
What is a fiscal year?
A fiscal year (or financial year) is the 12-month period a company uses for accounting, distinct from the calendar year. Companies choose a start month for all sorts of reasons — local law, the rhythm of their industry (a retailer might end its year after the holiday rush), or simply alignment with a parent group. The start month, set on the entity, decides where the year boundary falls. You set a single number: 1 = January through 12 = December.
What this one setting drives
It's a small field with a big reach — nearly everything time-based in REDA flows from it:
| Area | How the start month is used |
|---|---|
| Accounting periods | Periods are generated per territory, twelve to a year, and when you generate them you choose the first month of the fiscal year — set it to match this field. Period 1 is the first month of the fiscal year. (A "period" is one month of the calendar you post into.) |
| Year-end close | The fiscal year's boundaries come straight from this field: the year starts on the 1st of this month and ends a year later, less a day. That decides when the year-end closing entry runs and profit moves to Retained Earnings. |
| Book closure | When the year-end close executes, the entity's Year-End Closed Through date is stamped with your fiscal year end — 31 March for an April-start company, not 31 December. |
| Budgets | Budget records carry a fiscal-year label of their own — keep it aligned with the entity's calendar so plan-vs-actual compares like with like. |
Common fiscal years around the world
| Start month | Year runs | Common in |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — January | Jan – Dec | US companies, much of the EU (calendar year) |
| 4 — April | Apr – Mar | UK, India, Japan, Canada (government) |
| 7 — July | Jul – Jun | Australia, Egypt, Pakistan |
| 10 — October | Oct – Sep | US federal government, some non-profits |
In our example group, Meridian Properties US LLC uses 1 — January, while Meridian Properties UK Ltd and Meridian Properties India Pvt Ltd both use 4 — April, as their local rules expect. Each company keeps its own calendar, which is exactly why this lives on the entity rather than being set once for everyone.
A worked calendar — Meridian India’s April year
Here's what an April start actually produces. When the India territory's periods are generated for fiscal year 2026 with April as the first month, the twelve periods run like this:
| Period Number | Period name | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-04 | 1 April – 30 April 2026 — the first month of the fiscal year |
| 2 | 2026-05 | May 2026 |
| … | … | … |
| 9 | 2026-12 | December 2026 |
| 10 | 2027-01 | January 2027 — the year wraps into the next calendar year |
| 12 | 2027-03 | 1 March – 31 March 2027 — the final month; year-end close runs as at 31 March |
Two things to notice. Period names are always the calendar year and month of the period's
start date (2026-04) — that format is fixed platform-wide, so an April-start
company's “period 1” is named 2026-04, not “FY27-P1”. And the
period numbers carry the fiscal meaning: when Meridian India closes its year, the
“year” is periods 1–12 — April 2026 through March 2027.
Set it at the start — it locks once periods exist
Get this right during setup, before you generate accounting periods. Once periods exist for the entity's territory, REDA locks the start month with this exact message:
Periods are organised per territory, so entities sharing a territory share the calendar boundary. If you genuinely must change the start month later, you'd first remove the affected periods — a deliberate, rare operation, not a casual edit.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Generating periods with “Follow Calendar Month (Jan - Dec)” left on for an April-start company | The periods won't line up with the fiscal year — period 1 lands in January, and year-end close expects a period ending at your fiscal year end. | In the period generator, switch the toggle off and set First Month of Fiscal Year to match this field. |
| Putting companies with different fiscal years in the same territory | A territory carries one period calendar, and the start-month lock ties every entity in the territory to it. | Give companies with different year boundaries their own top-level territories, each with its own calendar. |
| Reading period names as fiscal years | Period 2027-01 on an April-start company belongs to the fiscal year that started in 2026 — easy to misfile. |
Use the Period Number (1–12) when thinking fiscally; the name is just the calendar month. |
Where to go next
- Accounting Basis (Accrual vs Cash) — the other calendar-shaping setting.
- Creating an Entity — set the fiscal year during setup.
- Entity Fields Reference — where this field sits on the record.
- Generating Periods — build the periods your fiscal year needs.
Frequently asked questions
Only if you start it in January. A fiscal year is just your 12-month accounting period; many companies deliberately start it in another month to match local rules or their business cycle.
Enter 4 (April). REDA then treats April as month 1 of your year and March as month 12.
Yes — it's set per entity. A US subsidiary can run a January year while its UK sibling runs an April year. Just keep them in separate territories, since each territory carries one period calendar. For group consolidation, they're aligned at reporting time.
The message — "No accounting period found for the fiscal year end date. Create the required period before running year-end close." — means the territory's periods don't reach your fiscal year end. Generate the missing year's periods (with the right first month) and run the close again.
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