How month to date works
Typically, when you compare sales in the current calendar month with sales in the corresponding month last year the results sales for the whole of the 'previous' month, while the current month will only include transactions up to 'today', instead of a 'like for like' comparison.
When you select Options > Month to date only the transactions from the previous month up to the same day of the current month are included., e.g, if today is the 7th of the month, the current month would only typically include transactions from 1st to 6th of the month and so only the transactions from 1st-6th of the comparison month would be included. Note: Be aware that, depending on what time your overnight database updates occur, month to date may use the day prior to 'yesterday' as its reference point.
You can use month to date in summary view (both the current and previous periods need to include the same month for each respective year) and in variance mode and stream mode (the displayed periods need to include the current month).
Example: Compare data for part of a month
In this example, the user wants to compare data for the first few weeks of February with the same part of the month in the previous year. We will assume today's date is 16 February 2017. We want a like-for-like comparison with the first 15 days in February last year (2016). We do this by using 'Month to Date'.
- Set your date range. Here we want to display data from this February vs last February. Select Period > Custom. Set the current period to start and end in February 2017, and the previous period to start and end in February 2016. Apply.
- Select the 'Customer' dimension and select Mode > Variance. The grid will display results for the entire month of February 2016, and the first 15 days of February 2017. The image below highlights the disparity in these results.
- Select Options > Month to Date.
Data in the 'previous' column will change to display data for the first 15 days of February 2016. The image below highlights that these results are much closer in range than in the image above without month to date applied.
You could save this (as a favorite or as a dashboard widget), and share it with other users. The Month to Date setting (whether on or off) will also apply to the shared user.
Administrators may set some databases to turn on the Month to date option by default.
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Typically, month to date is used when your period range (both current and previous) is set to a single month. Month to date will also be available if your period range spans a number of months, however the range must not exceed 12 months, and the range must not project into the future. |
Month to Date will remain on in your current session.