Tax Dates
In some situations, a date field needs to be expressed in terms of an organisation's fiscal year. Calendar years run from 1st January until 31st December, but an organisation’s fiscal year might start in a different month. For example, a company’s fiscal year might run from 1st June through 31st May. In such cases, it’s appropriate to display some date values in a view using fiscal equivalents (Fiscal Year, Fiscal Quarter and Fiscal Week Number) rather than their calendar equivalents.
To set the fiscal year start month for a data source, follow these steps:
Right-click (Control-click on Mac) the data source in the Data pane to open the Date Properties dialog box.
Set the Fiscal year start field to the appropriate month.
For each date dimension, you set the fiscal year start-month separately. In the Data pane, right-click a date dimension (Ctrl-click on Mac), and select Default Properties > Fiscal Year Start.
Whether a given level of a date dimension is affected by the use of the Fiscal Calendar depends on the specific case.
| Date Level | When Converted to Fiscal |
|---|---|
| Year | Reflects the fiscal year. For example, if Fiscal year start is set to April, the year for the date 1 June 2004 would be shown as FY 2005. |
| Quarter | The Quarter reflects the fiscal quarter. For example, if Fiscal year start is set to April, the quarter for the date 1 June 2004 would be Q1. |
| Month | No change in behaviour. The calendar month is the same as the fiscal month. |
| Day | No change in behaviour. The calendar day is the same as the fiscal day. |
| Hour | No change in behaviour. The calendar hour is the same as the fiscal hour. |
| Minute | No change in behaviour. The calendar minute is the same as the fiscal minute. |
| Second | No change in behaviour. The calendar second is the same as the fiscal second. |
| Week Number | The Week Number reflects the fiscal week number. For example, if Fiscal year start is set to April, the week number for the date 1 April 2004 would be 1. |
| Weekday | No change in behaviour. The calendar weekday is the same as the fiscal weekday. |
| MM/YYYY | No change in behaviour. This date format always displays calendar dates, even when a fiscal year has been assigned. |
| M/D/Y | This date format always displays Calendar dates, even when a fiscal year has been assigned. |
The only date levels that explicitly indicate that the fiscal calendar is in use are the Year and Quarter level. Specifically, fiscal years and quarters are shown with the FY prefix. This is not true for fiscal months or week numbers, however, which are not shown with any special fiscal markings.
Fiscal year designations for any given date dimension are applied to all instances of the field in the Tableau workbook. Fiscal dates can only be applied to dimensions in a relational data source.
Fiscal year formatting is applied to all date formats that include a year, or a year and a quarter. In particular, if you apply a custom date format, and only use the “y” and “q” placeholders, then FY will be prepended to each year.
Date Levels
When a date dimension is using a fiscal calendar, only the following date parts and truncations present in the view will reflect the fiscal calendar:
| Date part or truncation | When using a fiscal calendar |
| Year date part | Fiscal year start is set to April, the year for the date 1 June 2004 would be shown as FY 2005. |
| Quarter date part | Fiscal year start is set to April, the quarter for the date 1 June 2004 would be Q1. |
| Week Number date part | Fiscal year start is set to April, the week number for the date 1 April 2004 would be 1. |
| Year date truncation | Fiscal year start is set to May, the date 1 June 2004 would become 1 May 2004. |
| Quarter date truncation | Fiscal year start is set to July, the date 1 June 2004 would become 1 April 2004. |