Reporting has lost track of financial years

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 16, 2025
2 replies
24 views

Our financial year runs 1st September to 31st August, and when I run reports I regularly select "this financial year" or "last financial year" to get reports covering that time period.

Today, I'm suddenly getting these financial year reports showing 6th April to 5th April, which is the UK tax year, and not our financial year.

Checking settings (see attached image), I can see that the setting I entered for our "First month of financial year" is still correctly set to September. However, there appears to be a new setting of "First month of tax year", which is set to "06 April". It seems that the reports are now using the "tax year" field not the "financial year" field to set the dates for reports by financial year. It appears that someone has created a new setting, and completely failed to understand that an organisation's financial year does not have to be the same as the tax year.

PLEASE FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY.

(You might also like to point out to the people who created this that "06 April" is a day, and not a month - so not a valid answer to a setting called "First month of tax year"! Does nobody at Intuit check anything before putting new code into the live product?)

QuickBooks Online

M

MoiraskyeT

QuickBooks Team

The information you provided is basically accurate, Phil. I would like to clarify some points to ensure complete understanding regarding the transactions visible from April 6, which is now marked as the start of your tax year in QuickBooks.

If you're discussing the Profit and Loss report, please note that this report reflects income and expenses based on their recognition, rather than when transactions are actually paid. In QuickBooks, selecting April 6 as the start of the fiscal year primarily impacts the organization of annual financial summaries.

QuickBooks requires that both financial and tax years be set to 12-month periods. The First month of the financial year set in QuickBooks primarily influences how reports are generated, as reports will default to start from this specified month. This setting can be adjusted at any time.
For instance, you could change it back to access reports from previous years.

Alternatively, after modifying this setting to April or any other month, you can specify custom date ranges when generating reports to meet your needs.

To modify the settings, you can read this article: Edit company settings in QuickBooks Online.

If you have any questions about reports or need assistance with QuickBooks, feel free to get in touch with me. I'm here to ensure you have the support you need. Wishing you continued success in your business!

H

hayley4

I am having the same issue and do not understand this response! The fiscal year (April to April) is not the same as our financial years and for many of us is utterly matterless in relation to our use of QB. Please urgently fix this setting as the other poster has urged. I have no interest in resetting the date manually every time I pull up a report and the system is adopting a different approach to this in the classic and modern settings. None of us want more work to do. We don’t want to chat to work out what we need to do to change it. We just want it to work as it always has so we can get on with running our businesses.

L

LeeWhite1

I have just set up Quickbooks and set my first period as August (assuming August 2025). When looking at this financial year it is showing August 2024 as the first month. How is that possible?

Thanks

L

LeeWhite1

Think I might have answered my own question. Does the system assume it’s August 2024 start as we aren’t yet in August 2025? If so, how can I change that? My trading start date is 1st August 2025.

JenoP

QuickBooks Team

I'd like to welcome you first to the QuickBooks family, LeeWhite1.

You're also correct with your observations about the date. Given that your fiscal year begins in August, the system considers today and the period leading up to the end of July as part of the ongoing fiscal year.

For now, you don't need to take any action or make changes. QuickBooks Online will automatically show data for the fiscal year starting August 2025 as soon as the next month begins.

You can take a look at this article that includes details about year-end tasks and managing the fiscal year in QBO: Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online.

Please know that you can always tap on us and post new questions if you need anything else.

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