Financial Periods dialog box (P6 Professional Only)

Use the Financial Periods dialog box to define global customized financial periods. Users can store a project's period performance (past period actuals) for any predefined period contained in the Financial Periods dialog box.

The columns, fields, and buttons contained in the Financial Periods dialog box are described below.

Period Name: A unique identifier for the period. When you create a new financial period, the name defaults to the start and end dates for the period. Click on the name to edit.

Start Date: The period start date you specified in the Select Financial Period Timescale dialog box. This field is not editable.

End Date: The period end date you specified in the Select Financial Period Timescale dialog box. This field is not editable.

Add: Click to open the Select Financial Period Timescale dialog box in which you can specify the start and end date of the new period. When the dialog opens, the default start date is the day after the previous period's end date; the default end date is seven days later.

Note: The Start Date and End Date of a period cannot overlap the Start Date or End Date of any existing period.

Batch Create Financial Periods

Last Period End Date: Displays the latest period end date contained in the dictionary. This field is read-only.

Batch Start Date: Select the date on which you want the financial period batch to start. The module will adjust the date in this field (if necessary) after you create the batch depending on your selections in the Financial Period section.

Batch End Date: Select the date on which you want the financial period batch to end. The module will adjust the date in this field (if necessary) after you create the batch depending on your selections in the Financial Period section.

Financial Period: Select to make each financial period in the batch Every n Weeks or Every n Months long (where n is the number of weeks or months); or, select Every Year to make each period one year long.

Period Ends On: If you selected Every n Weeks, choose the day of the week you want each financial period to end on. If you selected Every n Months, this field is disabled. (The end date for each monthly period is the last day of the month.) If you selected Every Year, select the month you want the financial period batch to end on.

Batch Create: Creates the financial periods based on your selections.

Tips

• To create daily financial periods, enter or select the same date as the period Start Date and End Date.
• When you create a financial period, the default name is YYYY-MM-DD (e.g., 2004-04-01). To ensure the financial periods are listed in the proper order (e.g., in the Columns dialog box), you should use the default name or add a letter or number to the beginning of the name (e.g., 1 Fiscal Month, 2 Fiscal Month, etc.). You can click on a period in the Period Name column to edit the name.
• If your organization summarizes activity and resource data by financial period, to ensure that all project data in the database will be summarized (including closed projects), you must create financial periods that span the date range of all projects in the database. For example, if the oldest project in your database has a project start date of October 1st, 2001, your financial periods should begin on or before that date.

Notes

• All periods start at midnight and end at 11:59 PM.
• You must have the Add/Edit/Delete Financial Period Dates global privilege to add, edit, or delete financial periods in the Financial Period dictionary.
• You cannot modify the start and end dates of a financial period after it is created. To modify the start and end dates of a period, you must delete the financial period, then create a new period with the appropriate dates.
• You must have the Add/Edit/Delete Financial Period Dates global privilege to add or edit data in the Financial Periods dialog box.