Reporting has lost track of financial years

The information you provided is basically accurate, Phil. I would like to clarify some points to ensure complete understanding regarding the transactions visible from April 6, which is now marked as the start of your tax year in QuickBooks.

If you're discussing the Profit and Loss report, please note that this report reflects income and expenses based on their recognition, rather than when transactions are actually paid. In QuickBooks, selecting April 6 as the start of the fiscal year primarily impacts the organization of annual financial summaries.

QuickBooks requires that both financial and tax years be set to 12-month periods. The First month of the financial year set in QuickBooks primarily influences how reports are generated, as reports will default to start from this specified month. This setting can be adjusted at any time.
For instance, you could change it back to access reports from previous years.

Alternatively, after modifying this setting to April or any other month, you can specify custom date ranges when generating reports to meet your needs.

To modify the settings, you can read this article: Edit company settings in QuickBooks Online.

If you have any questions about reports or need assistance with QuickBooks, feel free to get in touch with me. I'm here to ensure you have the support you need. Wishing you continued success in your business!

I am having the same issue and do not understand this response! The fiscal year (April to April) is not the same as our financial years and for many of us is utterly matterless in relation to our use of QB. Please urgently fix this setting as the other poster has urged. I have no interest in resetting the date manually every time I pull up a report and the system is adopting a different approach to this in the classic and modern settings. None of us want more work to do. We don’t want to chat to work out what we need to do to change it. We just want it to work as it always has so we can get on with running our businesses. 

Hi MoiraskyeT,

Thanks for responding to my message. Unfortunately, I don't think you've understood what I've written (and shown in the screenshot). You wrote that "QuickBooks requires that both financial and tax years be set to 12-month periods. The First month of the financial year set in QuickBooks primarily influences how reports are generated, as reports will default to start from this specified month."

As you can see from my screenshot, I have "first month of the financial year" set to September. Yet reporting is giving a period from 6th April to 5th April, i.e. totally ignoring my setting for "first month of the financial year". I thought I had made that clear in my original message.

To correct your response, they way the system currently works is that the "first month of the financial year" set in Quickbooks IS NOT REMOTELY influencing how reports are generated, as reports ARE NOT defaulting to start from this specified month.

This is the problem that you need to fix. Please escalate this to the appropriate team.

Many thanks.

For me, this fault is only when you are using the reports in "Modern view". If you switch back to "Classic View", the FY dates are correct

Thank you for your response and for clarifying your concerns, Phil_UK. I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding regarding your reporting issue. I can see how frustrating it must be to have your financial year settings ignored, especially after you've taken the time to set them correctly. Let me chime in and provide my expertise.

I can see you've set the First month of the financial year to September, but the reports are still showing periods from April 6 to April 5. With this, any reports generated should reflect the financial period starting from September 1 of the previous year and ending on August 31, 2025.

Since your reports are instead showing periods based on the tax year from April 6 to April 5, I suggest double-checking the report period aside from choosing the This Finacial Year option in the reports tab. You can also manually choose September 1, 2024, and August 31, 2025.

If you're still getting the same results after following these steps, this isn't the expected behavior and suggests a malfunction in how the system is interpreting those settings. Let's troubleshoot this by opening your QBO account in an incognito or private window. This will help us determine if the issue is cache-related. You can refer to these shortcut keys:

• Mozilla Firefox: CTRL + Shift + P
• Microsoft Edge: CTRL + Shift + N
• Google Chrome: CTRL + Shift + N
• Safari: Command + Shift + N

Once done, go to your reports. If this resolves the issue, clear your regular browser's cache to refresh your connection and browsing history. Alternatively, you can switch to a different supported browser and apply the same troubleshooting steps.

After following these steps and your reports are still not pulling up the appropriate information, I recommend contacting our Live Support team for further assistance. They have specialized tools to securely access your account and ensure your concern is handled quickly.

Additionally, you can check this article to review your accounts in QuickBooks and ensure they match your bank and credit card statements: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

Following these steps will help ensure your records are complete and easily accessible. If you need further assistance, please leave a comment below. Have a great day!

1."This Fiscal Year" is not an option in the dropdown in the reports for me.

2. The choice of wording can be improved. 

In reports you have two terms that mean the same thing (Fiscal and Financial Year).  Not only that but you're using the old term, "Financial Year", which has been in use for over 20 years in QB, to mean a new thing (Tax Year!)!  

I think most people would agree that "THIS TAX YEAR" and "THIS FINANCIAL YEAR" make more sense, unless there are some strange cases where that doesn't make sense.

Maybe to clarify, the UK Government Financial/Fiscal Year starts the 1st April, the Government Tax Year starts 6th April.  Neither of those relate to many company's Financial Year.  

It might be nice to inform your users you have made these changes and why you have done them.

Hi AdonL.

Thank you for your suggestion. Switching to incognito mode has made no difference, which I suspected would be the case because other users are having the same issue, and if it was a caching issue this would be limited to me. Since recent experience shows that Intuit doesn't bother to test or check anything these days, I've done some testing myself.

As has been pointed out by hayley4 and bradsavant, this issue only affects reports in "modern view" and not those in "classic view". The issue appears to have arisen because a change has been made so that the standard reports (Financial Activities, Balance Sheet, etc.) are now opening in "modern view" by default.

It seems that the fix for now is to use the classic view, since that actually works. But we shouldn't have to switch to classic view every time we want to run a report with the correct data (the same as we shouldn't have to set dates manually when you have pre-set options that ought to work properly).

Intuit - please revert those reports to use classic view by default (as they did until recently) until your programmers and testers have corrected their code AND TESTED that the modern view works as it should.

Many thanks.

Hi there, @Phil_UK. I'll direct you to the best team that provides further assistance in resolving the of getting incorrect financial year when running reports in QuickBooks Online.

I recommend contacting our Live support team. They have the necessary tools to identify the root cause of the issue.

Here's how:

1. Click the Help icon in the upper right corner of your QuickBooks Online screen.
2. Select the Search tab and type in Contact in the search bar.
3. Click on Contact Us.
4. In the How would you like to connect with us? section, choose Callback.
5. Fill in your contact information.
6. Select Have us call you.

Meanwhile. currently, there is no option to make the classic view the default while waiting for the issue to be resolved.

Furthermore, there are several options for personalizing your reports. You can use filters to show particular accounts or customers, or adjust the layout to ensure the data will show in the right locations. Here is an article to guide you with the process: Customize reports.

Don't hesitate to contact the Community anytime you have questions or concerns about the QuickBooks features. The Community team will be happy to help you some more.

Looks like they may have fixed this.

There are still some options for "fiscal" year that don't seem to correspond correctly, but at least Financial Year is back to what it should be.

Yes, they have. I called the Live team that afternoon to ask them to look at it, and it seems someone who could make changes to the software had been following the thread and had fixed it already!

I have just set up Quickbooks and set my first period as August (assuming August 2025).  When looking at this financial year it is showing August 2024 as the first month.  How is that possible?

Thanks

Think I might have answered my own question.  Does the system assume it’s August 2024 start as we aren’t yet in August 2025? If so, how can I change that?  My trading start date is 1st August 2025.

I'd like to welcome you first to the QuickBooks family, LeeWhite1.

You're also correct with your observations about the date. Given that your fiscal year begins in August, the system considers today and the period leading up to the end of July as part of the ongoing fiscal year.

For now, you don't need to take any action or make changes. QuickBooks Online will automatically show data for the fiscal year starting August 2025 as soon as the next month begins.

You can take a look at this article that includes details about year-end tasks and managing the fiscal year in QBO: Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online.

Please know that you can always tap on us and post new questions if you need anything else.

Thanks for your response.  Will my start date still be August 2025 or will I need to perform a dummy year end? 

You don't need to create a dummy year-end, LeeWhite1.

Your start date will be August 2025 as long as your transaction dates and balances are entered correctly. No adjustments are needed, especially if you haven't made any entries yet.

If you have more questions, you can hit the Reply button below.

It looks like this issue is back again. My financial year starts in January, yet QB is now showing it as April in the reports, and on the home screen widgets. Tried on two different PC's so it's not a browser issue.

Is anyone else experiencing this again?

Pete

I commend your efforts in trying two different PC's to ensure that the issue isn't related to your browser, @kenningp. I'll guide you to the best resources for help.

To address the problem with the incorrect financial year start on your home screen widgets, I recommend contacting the QuickBooks Online (QBO) live support team to identify the root cause.

They also have the complete tools to check your account in a safe and secure environment. Once the reason for this issue is recognized, they can provide you with information on how and when it will be resolved and guide you through your next steps. Here's how:

1. From the upper right tabs, choose the (?) Help icon.
2. Select the Search tab and click Contact Us below.
3. Enter a brief description of the error you encountered. Then, Continue.
4. Pick how you would like to reach us. Either through Chat or Callback.

It's also essential to note our support's availability to make sure you can contact them during their operating hours.

You can always return here if you have additional questions.