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. Navigate to Administration > Expense or Invoice and select Reporting Configuration.

    The image displays the Invoice Processing Admin interface with a navigation menu on the left, where the Reporting Configuration option is highlighted, and a main area on the right listing various administrative options and their descriptions.
  2. Select the Fiscal Calendar tab.

    The image displays the Reporting Configuration screen in the Invoice Processing Admin interface, with the Fiscal Calendar tab highlighted and sections for BI Manager Preferences and Reporting Preferences shown, along with a Save button.
  3. 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 the Reporting Configuration screen in the Invoice Processing Admin interface, where a user selects the New button to add a fiscal year by entering details such as fiscal year name, start date, and end date, and then generates fiscal periods before saving the changes.