topic Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ? in SAS Visual Analytics

How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

Genesis007 — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 09:17:21 GMT

Hi everybody,

I want to compare the turnover of two fiscal years, but these fiscal years are not on a calendar year.

My fiscal year starts on 01/10/2021 and ends on 30/09/2022 I have defined a category containing the name of my fiscal year (FY21-22 for example) so I can have a view of my turnover for my fiscal year, and for the months of my fiscal year.

On the other hand, when I want to compare the turnover for the month of October for my financial year N with the turnover for the month of October for my financial year N-1, using the Parallelperiod function, it does not work. Do you know a solution to do this kind of comparison?

Thank you in advance.

Michel.

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

mkeintz — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 13:41:04 GMT

Saying "it does not work" ... does not work.

What did you expect, vs what did you get?

What did you try? Please show the sas log of your program.

Please provide sample data, in the form of a working data step, of the data you have, and the data you want.

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

ballardw — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:09:18 GMT

Suggestion: In the long run you may want to think about using a 4 digit year and quite possibly just us the start or end year numerically to define the Fiscal year. "FY21-22" comes way before "FY99-00". So sort order in the long run becomes an issue. Second is comparing the values of these things is going to be a minor headache when you try to calculate the number of years between two values.

If your comparison is year-to-year for the same calendar month the question is do you have actual SAS dates? The previous calendar year is in a different fiscal year but still just one year apart, the fiscal plays no part at all in the calculations.

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

Genesis007 — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:57:16 GMT

Thanks for your answer,

I'am using VIYA, I've a data table with my sales.
I've build a date hierarchy with my order date, and I've insert my category Fiscal year at the top of this hierarchy (Fiscal Year, Month, Day)

In my report I've my sales items in line, my hierarchy in column and my sales amount as measure.

My goal is to add a new calculated measure to compare each month from the Period FY20-21 to the same month on the FY21-22.
For that, I'm using :

I've tried differents parametters in this function, but the system can't have a result.

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

Genesis007 — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 16:26:50 GMT

Hi ballardw, thanks for your suggestion.

You're right concerning the name of my fiscal year. I think I'll use the end year numerically in the end.
Concerning my sas date, I've a date formated with Date9.

I can create my date hierarchy with this date.

But...

I can't have my measure to compare my progression between october 2020 and october 2021...

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

mkeintz — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 21:55:30 GMT

Your fiscal year is from October through September. The usual naming convention of fiscal years for financial data sources appears to follow the US IRS convention: Any fiscal year that ends at the end of June 30 or later has its fiscal year assigned the value of the year of the end point. And fiscal years that end on May 31 or earlier is assigned the value of the year of the beginning point.

There are rules for fiscal years that end on some date other than end-of-month, but I've never needed to utilize that now-forgotten knowledgeI believe anything after June 15 would be treated as if the fiscal period ended on June 30.

In your case, the usual convention in the US would be to identify fiscal year October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019 as FY 2019.

Re: How to compare two fiscal years (N and N-1) when the fiscal year is not on the calendar year ?

Genesis007 — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 16:09:04 GMT

Hi,

thanks for your answer.
If I understand well, if my fiscal year is well named, the parallelperiod function will be ok ?