Changing your financial year date
You'll find your organisation's financial year start and end dates in the System Settings > Organisation Settings screen. These should exactly match the accounting periods you use to create your annual accounts.
The article below gives details of how to change a financial year-end date.
If you want to change the system start date on ExpensePlus (i.e. the first day of your first financial year on ExpensePlus), you'll need to submit your request via this link.
In this article:
Some important notes about your financial year-end and start date
Changing your financial year-end and start date with the Charity Commission
Changing your financial year-end and start date in ExpensePlus
Some important notes about your financial year-end and start date
If you change your financial year dates on ExpensePlus, you must also change them with the Charity Commission.
Most charities have a financial year start date that's on the 1st of a month. This keeps things simple and enables internal monthly reporting to run 'calendar month'.
In ExpensePlus, it's not possible to set the financial year start date to be the 29th, 30th or 31st of a month (as not all months have only 29 or 30 days). Where year-end dates would cause the financial year start date of the next financial year to be the 29th, 30th or 31st of a month, these are not selectable.
Your financial year start and end dates are in the System Settings > Organisation Settings screen:
Changing your financial year-end and start date with the Charity Commission
It's straightforward to change your financial year-end and start date with the Charity Commission - to make this change, this link provides further information.
Here are some reasons why you might want to change the date:
- if you have a non-standard financial year start date (perhaps because you've never updated this since your charity became registered);
- if you would like your financial year to be adjusted (perhaps your organisation currently budgets and reports per tax year, but would find it useful to move to per calendar year).
If you change the date, you will have a financial year that is not the usual 12 months in length. This is because your current financial year is either shortened or lengthened, allowing subsequent financial years to begin on the desired date.
If you change your year-end date with the Charity Commission, then it's important you make this change within ExpensePlus straight away.
If you don't, the year-end process within ExpensePlus will run on the wrong date, and you won't be able to make this change retrospectively.
Changing your financial year-end and start date in ExpensePlus
Your accounting periods within ExpensePlus need to match the accounting periods for which you create accounts.
So you should only make this update in ExpensePlus once you have officially changed your organisation's financial year with the Charity Commission - see above.
To make the change in ExpensePlus, in the Organisation Settings screen, click the 'Edit' button (pencil icon) to the right of the Financial Years section.
In the pop-up that appears, you will be able to adjust the end date of your current financial year. This will automatically update the start date of the following financial year. Remember that if you want to change the system start date on ExpensePlus (i.e. the first day of your first financial year on ExpensePlus), you'll need to contact our support team.
ExpensePlus can handle financial years that aren't the typical 12 months in length. All of the financial and donation reports within ExpensePlus will correctly display the financial months (or part months). If you have any questions or need further guidance, please click the 'send us a message' button at the top of the page.