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A fiscal year is any 12-month period that the company uses for accounting purposes. If a company's fiscal year is the same as the calendar year, it is simple determine its fiscal year. A financial report covers from 2020/1/1 till 2020/12/31. It is called 2020 year's financial report.

If a company's fiscal year is from 4/1 till 3/31 on next year, and a financial report cover from 2020/4/1 till 2021/3/31, is it called 2020 year's financial report or 2021 year's financial report?

If a company's fiscal year is from 9/1 till 8/31 on next year, and a financial report cover from 2020/9/1 till 2021/8/31, is it called 2020 year's financial report or 2021 year's financial report?

If a company's fiscal year is from 12/1 till 11/30 on next year, and a financial report cover from 2020/12/1 till 2021/11/30, is it called 2020 year's financial report or 2021 year's financial report, then?

Peter Mortensen
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showkey
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  • When forming a company, one can choose to use which ever fiscal year they wish. Some prefer Jan, others September. Some, because of the fast moving nature of their business might choose a different month because that is the month they started. – Pete B. Jan 31 '22 at 12:42

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Typical nomenclature would be to refer to the calendar year of the last month of a company's fiscal year.

ie: A company with a year going from April 1 2021 to March 31 2022, would typically call that year "2022".

To remove confusion with a 'regular' Jan 1 2022 - Dec 31 2022 year, some people would refer to that as "fiscal 2022", or perhaps "year ended 2022" or in longest form removing all doubt "year ended Mar 31 2022".

Grade 'Eh' Bacon
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