Jeff Moden (12/25/2014)
CELKO (12/25/2014)
Why do some companies use weird Fiscal Years, such as starting in April? What is the purpose there?
The last time I looked the GAAP had about 150 fiscal calendars. I have no idea why. Hell, I am still hoping that the US will switch to the Metric system, UTC time and the Edwards Calendar (four quarters of 30, 30, 31 day months with an intercalendaral New Years day every year and a leap year day every four years).
Heh... it's funny that you bring up the metric system. I remember doing some work concerning solar heat and I had a question. Someone on that particular forum (I forget which forum it was... it was a long time ago) was British and my question concerned BTUs (British Thermal Units) so I naturally assumed that he would know about BTUs. Man, was I wrong! 😀
Companies report and finalize results by fiscal year. If they have cyclical revenue/sales, they might prefer report after a high-sales period rather than a low-sales period.
Also, companies need time -- sometimes quite a bit of time -- to prepare these (fiscal)-year-end reports. It might be difficult to get that done in, say, early Jan because of the holidays, whereas pushing it out 3 months to Apr removes that issue.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) A socialist is someone who will give you the shirt off *someone else's* back.