Two companies, two calendars — when FY2025 isn't the same year

mentor: "Fiscal yearDefinitionFiscal yearThe company's own 12-month reporting window — which need not match the calendar. Two filers can both report 'fiscal 2026' over windows months apart, so a shared FY label is not a shared period: honest comparison aligns filers by period-end date, never by the label.Fiscal year = the filer's chosen 12-month window (some retail calendars run 52/53 weeks)Drivers: Year-end choice · Label conventionFull definition → 2025" sounds absolute, but it isn't. A fiscal year is each company's own 12-month reporting period, and it can end in any month. Read two filers' "FY2025" figures as the same window and you've made a wrong-period comparison before you started.

Below are two real filers with different fiscal-year-ends — NVIDIA closes in late January, Apple in late September — each from its latest annual reportDefinitionForm 10-KThe audited annual report a US public company files with the SEC — the most complete single document about a business: audited financial statements, management's discussion, risk factors, and the auditor's own opinion. It is the primary source nearly every figure on Echelon grounds to.One 10-K = audited statements + MD&A + risk factors + auditor's reportDrivers: Assurance · Cadence · Restated comparativesFull definition → (Form 10-K), via SEC EDGAR. Decide which statements the calendar actually supports.

A fiscal-year LABEL is the company's own; the CALENDAR window is set by the period-end date. Two filers that close in different months don't cover the same 12 months, so their same-numbered fiscal years can't be compared as one period — align by period-end date.