About the financial year and financial periods

Generally, a financial year is defined by its start date and lasts twelve months.
The financial year may be set as a calendar year starting January 1, or it may be different.
For example: The company's financial year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year that gives the financial year its number—so the financial year 2020 ran from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2020.

You select the Belongs to next year option in the Financial year (GL101000) window when the financial year starts late in the calendar year and gets its number from the next year. The system calculates the end date of the financial year automatically as the end date of the last period.
For details, see: Configure a financial year that matches the calendar year and Configure a fiscal year and its periods

If you have configured a financial year, and then you have discovered that this is not the year that you need, the system allows you to delete your financial year setup by clicking in the window toolbar and create the new one.

You can delete the financial year setup only if there are no financial periods generated for this year in the Financial periods (GL201000) window.

The first financial year usually designates the year when the company starts processing its operations in Visma Net.
However, if you plan to transfer beginning balances for the accounts, activate at least one period that precedes the first period of actual operations.
For example: If you plan to start using Visma Net from the first period of a new financial year, select the previous year as the first year, generate all periods, activate only the last period of that year, and enter initial balances in the last period of the "first" year.

If your company starts operations in Visma Net after the year's first financial period, activate only the period when you actually start entering transactions.

You cannot post transactions with dates earlier than the start date of the first active period of the first financial year in Visma Net.

You should not change the start date of the first financial year if any financial periods have been generated and transactions have been posted to them.
Nevertheless, if needed, during system implementation and initiation, you can shift the start date one year earlier. For details, see Shift the first year one year earlier .

The financial year is divided into financial periods, which may have equal or different durations.
The total length of all periods may or may not be equal to the year.

When setting up periods, you can select an option based on months or weeks, or you can define custom-length periods.
If you select one of the options based on months (Month, Two months, or Quarter), the periods will start and end on the same dates each year, and each successive financial year will start and end on the same date.

However, if you define periods by using an option based on weeks (Week, Two weeks, Four weeks, 4-4-5 weeks, 4-5-4 weeks, or 5-4-4 weeks), the start and end dates of same-name periods will vary with the year, and the number of periods per year may vary. Financial periods based on weeks start on the same day of the week and end on the same day of the week. However, a calendar year has 365 or 366 days, while the maximum length of the a year's periods based on weeks is 364 days. For a financial year based on the 4-4-5, 4-5-4, or 5-4-4 option, the system automatically adds an additional week to the last period if the gap between the end of the financial year and the end of the last period exceeds three days.

For a financial year with week-long periods, to process the difference between the length of a calendar year and the length of all week-long periods, you can select one of the following year-end calculation options:

• Last day of the financial year:
  The system adds an additional (53rd) week-length period if the last period ends four or more days earlier than the financial year ends.
  If the last period ends fewer than four days earlier, no additional period is added.
• Include the Last <Day of week> of the financial year:
  You can select a specific day of the week (Sunday, Monday, or any other day of week) for this method, and the system will add an additional (53rd) week-length period if the year's last period doesn't include the last in the financial year specific day of the week, and adds no additional period if the last period includes the last in the financial year specific day of week.
• Include <Day of week> nearest to the end of financial year:
  The system defines the end of the year so that its last period includes the selected day of the week that is nearest to the end of the financial year.
  An additional (53rd) period is added if the specific day of the week is closer to the end of the year than to the end of the last period.

The financial periods for each new financial year can be generated in the Financial periods (GL201000) window.

Once financial periods are defined, the same periods will be used for all subsequent financial years.
If needed, you can modify the financial periods of the upcoming year by using the Financial periods (GL201000) window.

You can change the financial period settings if all previous financial years are closed and you did not post any transaction to any period of the current financial year. However, modifying periods is highly inadvisable, since it will affect all budgets and reports that compare information about the previous and current year. Such a change may result in reporting errors and formatting problems.

If you need to modify the periods of the upcoming year, generate the periods for this year and select the User-defined periods check box.
After that, you can edit the end date for any of the periods, with the start date of the next period adjusted automatically.

It may happen that after you have modified the periods, the last period ends on a different date than the financial year does.
Then, once you attempt to save the periods, the system lets you select a method to make the year end on the end date of the last period.
You can select one of the following options:

• Modify start date of the next year: To move the start date of the next financial year to the end of the last period.
• Modify financial year settings: To modify the settings of the financial year to make the last period end when the year ends.
• Extend the last period: To extend the last period so that it will include the end of the year.

If you modify one-week periods, the day of week on which the last period ends may not be the same day of the week on which other periods of the year end, and once you save the modified periods, the system will let you choose whether to move the start day of the week for periods of the next year.
Make sure that you move the start day of periods to another day of week only if it is absolutely necessary; the change of the start day will affect budgets and reports that compare the data of successive financial years.

An adjustment period is a special one-day period added after the last period in a year. Its end date is the same as its start date.
An adjustment period can be used for posting only adjustment transactions. If you need to, you can add an adjustment period during the initial financial year setup.
For details, see: Add an adjustment period

Later, you can add an adjustment period for a particular financial year or delete it for a particular financial year (if it was configured) by using the Financial periods (GL201000) window. To enable modification of periods, select the User-defined periods check box and add an adjustment period (with the end date the same as the start date) after the last period. Alternatively, you can select the last period and select a check box in the Adjustment period column for this period.
When you click ,the last period will become an adjustment period with the new end date equal to initial start date of the period.