Fiscal year start

Many companies close their books on a year that does not start in January: April, July or October are common. A fiscal year start moves every year and quarter in a report by that many months, so Q1 means the first quarter of the business year rather than January to March.

Getting it wrong is quiet: every chart still draws, and every year-on-year comparison is off by the offset.

Where it appears in DASH:Gen

A generated Power BI project adds a calendar table when the data has a date column, and that calendar can start its fiscal year in another month. The model stage of the step-by-step route states the month under Calendar generated, next to the date column the calendar is linked to, so the offset is visible before any measure is written. The calendar is a dimension of the model, as described under star schema.

See also: Star schema · Power BI from an Excel file