Maintaining Fiscal Calendars

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure fiscal calendars for Cognos reporting.

Cognos Fiscal Calendars Overview

Analysis and Intelligence use the fiscal calendars you define on the Fiscal Calendar tab for their reports and dashboards. BI Managers also use these fiscal calendars to set up their budgets on the Reporting Budget page.

A fiscal calendar lets your organization define accounting periods that are independent of the standard calendar year. Many organizations create custom calendars to align financial reporting with their business cycles, compare results with competitors, or avoid the busy January year-end period.

Each fiscal calendar includes one or more fiscal years, and each fiscal year contains one or more fiscal periods. Fiscal years have specific start and end dates, and their lengths can vary to account for leap years or short and long years.

Fiscal years cannot overlap or have gaps between them. Fiscal periods within a year can vary in length but typically represent months. The system generates a fiscal quarter for every three fiscal periods, and a fiscal year period for the entire year.

The image displays a Reporting Configuration page with the Fiscal Calendar tab highlighted. A toolbar shows New, Modify, Activate, Deactivate, and Remove. A table lists Fiscal Year, Start Date, End Date, and Active. The rows show 2025 starting 03/01/2025 and ending 02/28/2026, Active Yes; and 2024 starting 03/31/2024 and ending 02/28/2025, Active Yes.

Configure Fiscal Calendars for Cognos Reporting

To add a fiscal calendar:

Steps

  1. From the Reporting Configuration page, select the Fiscal Calendar tab.

    The image displays a Reporting Configuration page with the Fiscal Calendar tab highlighted. A toolbar shows New, Modify, Activate, Deactivate, and Remove. The table lists Fiscal Year, Start Date, End Date, and Active. The rows show 2026 starting 03/01/2026 and ending 02/28/2027, active Yes; 2025 starting 03/01/2025 and ending 02/28/2026, active Yes; and 2024 starting 03/31/2024 and ending 02/28/2025, active Yes.
  2. Select New. Complete all required fields and then select Generate Fiscal Periods to create all fiscal periods for the fiscal year. When you're done, select Save.

    The image displays a Reporting Configuration page with the Fiscal Calendar tab open. An Add Fiscal Year dialog is shown. The highlighted section includes Fiscal Year Name set to 2027, Start Date set to 03/01/2027, and End Date set to 02/28/2028, with a highlighted Generate Fiscal Periods button. A table lists monthly fiscal periods from Mar 2027 to Feb 2028 with start and end dates and Active set to Yes. The highlighted Save button appears at the bottom right, with Cancel beside it.

Summary

  • Manage fiscal calendars for use in Cognos reports and dashboards.
  • Create custom fiscal calendars independent of the standard calendar year.
  • Define fiscal years and periods to align with your business cycles.
  • Use the Fiscal Calendar tab within Reporting Configuration to manage settings.
  • Generate fiscal periods automatically for each fiscal year.