How the Fiscal Year Configuration and asOfDate Work Together

What Is It?

The asOfDate and fiscal year -  a fiscal year is a one-year period that companies and governments use for financial reporting and budgeting - configuration combines to give you insight into your spend data. 

Fiscal Year supports seeing your current and previous fiscal year within columns as well as in the UI. If you need to see information prior to the previous fiscal year you can use the asOfDate DatePicker to move the date back to do comparisons on a YOY (year over year) basis. Previously you would be able to see only the past 12 months as a column, and be able to see five years of total spend on the Past Spend Tab. 

What is the Fiscal Year?

This is a setting on a tenant level that allows the user to specify when their fiscal year - by default this is set to calendar year ending in December. The year shown for Fiscal Year (202x) is dependent on when the fiscal year ends. For example, if a Fiscal Year ends in 2023, therefore it is called the FY 2023. 

What is Fiscal Year End Month and When the Books Close in ERP? 

They are found in Settings>Organization>Finance, though you must be an Admin+ to see the information. These settings define what is shown as a fiscal year within your Productiv tenant and how far Fiscal YTD Spend lags versus the current AsOfDate in the date picker. 

How is Fiscal YTD Spend calculated and why does it lag?

The Fiscal Spend to Date (FYTD) metric is a metric summing the current totals of spend (or GAAP expenses) within the UI. 

This is a lagging metric. How far this metric lags is a combination of the asOfDate as well as when the books close setting. By default the when the books close setting is set to 15 days. This means that no data is tabulated for the previous month until these 15 days are complete in the current month. For example,  if you are at an AsofDate of January 15th, the FYTD metrics will show data as of November. Once you go to January 16th the FYTD metrics will shift to December. This makes the lag effectively 1 month and 15 days. 

Lag = 1 Month + When the Books Close Setting

If your customer wants the metrics to shift as soon as the user is in a new month based on AsOfDate  - the recommendation is to set the when the books close setting to 0. The lag will still be 1 month of data. 

How is Fiscal YTD Spend work at the end of the Fiscal Year?

Since Fiscal YTD Spend is a lagging metric this means that in the UI at the end of the Fiscal year you have a similar behavior as detailed above. If the fiscal year is defined to end in Dec with the when the books close set to 0, and the AsOfDate changes to Jan 1, the Fiscal YTD spend will be as of December of the previous year.