Non-12-Month and "Stub Year" Fiscal Year Article Outline
- What is a fiscal year?
- Why would your organization have a Non-12 Month fiscal year?
- What is a Non-12 Month fiscal year?
- How the Non-12 Month fiscal year works with the CDP
- How the Non-12 Month fiscal year works with Funder Reports
- How the Non-12 Month fiscal year works with Analytic Reports
- How to change the fiscal year on a survey. (New page)
Fiscal Years and Nonprofit Organizations
All nonprofit organizations use a 12-month period for financial reporting known as a fiscal year. Fiscal years may be a January-December calendar year, but they might also be another set of 12 months, such as July-June, or September-August, following the academic calendar, or May-April if your organization has seasonal programs culminating in the early spring. Fiscal years always begin on the first day of a month and end on the last day of a month, and organizations choose a fiscal year when they apply for 501(c)(3) status, or follow the fiscal year of their parent organization.
But things change at organizations, and so do fiscal years. Maybe you merge with another organization or change your programming scheme. Maybe when your organization was established, you chose a fiscal year without considering how and when you wanted to track information and trends. Whatever the reason, the IRS has a procedure to change your fiscal year period. But when that happens, it has a ripple effect on your financial reporting. Here’s an example:
Old Fiscal Year: July - June
New Fiscal Year: October - September
Reporting Periods:
July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019
July 1, 2019 - September 30, 2019???
October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020
What do you do with the three-month period between to old year and the new year? Organizations have a choice: the three months can be reported separately as a stub period, or the three months can be included with the new fiscal period to create a long year of 15 months. Either of these choices can be reported in a CDP as a non-12-month fiscal year.
How the Non-12-Month fiscal year works with the CDP
When you're ready to work on a survey for a non-12-month fiscal year:
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In the Your Surveys section, click “New Survey”
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From the dropdown menu, select the year that contains the last date of your fiscal year.
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If you want to enter data for a non-12-month fiscal year that ends in the same year as your previous CDP, you’ll get a warning message that’s you’ve already used that year, but you can click “Continue” if you know you’ve selected the correct year.
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Click the “Other” radio button next to Fiscal Year Length, and choose the number of months in your non-12-month fiscal year.
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Choose the option to change your fiscal year-end date, and select the correct month and day.
Tips
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As you enter the data in the new CDP, enter data for the non-12-month fiscal year only: the shorter stub period or the long year you selected in the Survey Set-up process.
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You must use the same fiscal year in the CDP as you use in your IRS 990
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If your organization is audited or has an independent auditor’s review, you must use the same fiscal period as your audit.
How the Non-12-Month fiscal year works with Funder & Analytic Reports
Submitted non-12-month fiscal year CDPs are eligible for inclusion in SMU DataArts funder reports and analytic reports.
Funder Reports
If you are using CDP data as part of a grant application, and have a non-12-month fiscal year, when you are generating your funder report, when you select a year from the drop-down menu, you’ll see the number of months indicated next to the year in question. If you select that year, you’ll see a message that says “Your Funder Report will include a fiscal year covering a period other than 12 months. If you would like to run a report with different fiscal years included, please contact the Support Center.”
Once you generate the report, the column headers will show the full fiscal year-end date. If you have a non-12-month fiscal year included in the report, the date will have an asterisk and a note that says “This report includes one or more fiscal years covering a period other than 12 months.”
Tips
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If your report contains data for a non-12-month fiscal year, make sure to let your grantmaker know. Long years or short years will change your trends, and grantmakers and panels will want to take that into account as they review your data.
Analytic Reports
If you want to run a DataArts analytic report, you have the choice of running a trend report, or a comparison report to use for benchmarking.
Trend reports including non-12-month fiscal years will work much the same way as funder reports:
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Once you generate the report, the column headers will show the full fiscal year-end date.
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If you have a non-12-month fiscal year included in the report, that column header will have an asterisk and a note that says “This report includes one or more fiscal years covering a period other than 12 months.”
Comparison reports
You can choose a non-12-month year for your comparison reports, but the set of comparison data included in the report will only be drawn from 12-month fiscal years. If you have a non-12-month fiscal year, that data will not be included in comparison pools and other analytics to keep the data consistent.
More help on non-12-month and stub period fiscal years:
If you have any questions about creating a CDP, entering data, or running any kind of report based on non-12-month fiscal years, please reach out to the SMU DataArts support center.
How to change the fiscal year on a survey.
