Bikram Sambat, Fiscal Year and Month-End Closing for Sales Teams

A sales manager in Nepal lives in two calendars. The bank statement is in AD, the festival list and the dealer's cheque are in BS, and the tax office thinks in fiscal years that begin in Shrawan. If your reports mix these carelessly, targets will not match commissions, invoices will fall in the wrong year, and the monthly meeting will start with an argument about dates.

This guide explains how to handle BS dates, the fiscal year and a month-end close in a way that is clear to everybody.

The basics: BS months and the fiscal year

The Bikram Sambat calendar has twelve months: Baishakh, Jestha, Ashadh, Shrawan, Bhadra, Ashwin, Kartik, Mangsir, Poush, Magh, Falgun and Chaitra. Month lengths vary from 29 to 32 days and differ from year to year, so conversions need an official table.

The fiscal year commonly used for government and business accounts starts on 1 Shrawan and ends at the end of Ashadh, for example 2082/83. The first quarter therefore is Shrawan to Ashwin, which often overlaps with Dashain. Confirm any official date or filing deadline with your tax adviser, since rules and schedules can change.

Fiscal quarter	BS months	Typical selling context
Q1	Shrawan, Bhadra, Ashwin	Monsoon, then festival run-up
Q2	Kartik, Mangsir, Poush	Post-Tihar, winter
Q3	Magh, Falgun, Chaitra	Spring, wedding and picnic season
Q4	Baishakh, Jestha, Ashadh	Summer, year-end push

The seasonal remarks are general and vary by product and region.

Store once, show in BS

A sound approach for any system, spreadsheet or app: keep an unambiguous date in storage and convert to BS only at the screen or print. That avoids errors when a date is typed in one calendar and read in another. It also means a daily report, an invoice and a payment receipt all agree about which day it was.

Watch out for the time of day as well. Nepal Time is UTC+5:45. An order placed at 11:30 pm on the last day of the month belongs to that day in Nepal even if a server in another zone thinks it is already the next. Your tool should record times in Nepal time for business purposes.

Holidays and working days

Nepali holidays are set by the BS calendar and some, like Dashain and Tihar, move around in the AD calendar. Beyond public holidays, the working week itself differs: many offices run Sunday to Friday, but shops and some staff take different days off. Set up:

• A holiday list for each year, updated when the government publishes it.
• Your company's work week.
• Individual exceptions, such as a staff member with a different weekly off.

This matters for fairness. A salesperson should not be marked absent on Dashain, and daily targets should be pro-rated by actual working days.

The month-end closing routine

A month-end close keeps your numbers stable. Here is a practical checklist, usually done in the first three to five days of the next BS month:

1. Orders: every order is dispatched, cancelled or carried over deliberately.
2. Invoices: all dispatched orders are invoiced; no gaps in numbering.
3. Returns and credit notes: all returns for the month are approved or rejected.
4. Collections: all payments are recorded and allocated to invoices.
5. Expenses: field expense claims are approved, rejected or carried forward.
6. Stock: dealer and warehouse counts are done; variances are explained.
7. Targets: achievement is calculated against monthly targets.
8. Commissions and salaries: drafts are prepared, reviewed and finalised.
9. Lock: after review, no more edits to the closed month without a recorded reason.

For the commission side see sales targets and commission plans.

Why finalise only after the month has ended

Computing commission halfway through the month is tempting but misleading. Late returns, cancelled invoices and delayed payments change the figures. A good rule: you can look at a draft any time, but you finalise only after the month has ended, recompute from the latest data, and post once. That avoids paying twice or disputing a number that changed after it was shown.

Fiscal-year closing

The year-end brings extra work:

• Invoice numbering may restart in the new fiscal year. Keep the old series closed and the new one starting clean. See IRD-compliant VAT invoices.
• Opening balances: each customer's balance carries forward; check the aging report matches the ledger.
• Stock valuation: count physical stock and reconcile before the new year.
• Targets: set annual targets for dealers by fiscal quarter, and monthly targets for staff.
• Price lists: review price changes that often start with the new year.
• Audit prep: export invoices, credit notes and ledgers for your accountant.

Targets that follow the calendar

If a dealer's annual target is NPR 12,000,000, you can split it across the four fiscal quarters either equally or according to seasonality. For example, a hypothetical split of 20, 25, 25, 30 percent gives NPR 2,400,000, 3,000,000, 3,000,000 and 3,600,000. Review progress each quarter and agree adjustments in writing, not after the year is lost.

Common calendar mistakes

• Typing dates in the wrong calendar and generating reports with the wrong month.
• Cutting off the month at midnight AD rather than the BS month boundary.
• Counting Saturdays and festivals as working days in target pace.
• Changing closed months silently, which breaks trust in all numbers.
• Forgetting that cheques and bank statements use AD when reconciling.

Communicating with the team

Publish the month's calendar on day one: working days, holidays, cut-off date for orders and expense claims, and the date commissions will be paid. A short message to all staff, in Nepali and English, prevents most month-end arguments.

A closing calendar you can copy

A fixed rhythm removes stress. Here is an example schedule, in BS days of the new month:

Day	Task	Owner
1	Last orders dispatched or cancelled; stock counts at dealers begin	Warehouse and officers
1-2	Returns and credit notes approved	Sales manager
2	Payments allocated; expense claims decided	Accounts
3	Targets and achievement calculated; draft commissions reviewed	Sales manager
4	Owner review of agent reports	Owner
5	Month locked; commissions finalised and paid	Accounts

Adjust it to your size. What matters is that everyone knows the dates.

Handling disputes after closing

Some corrections will arrive after the lock, such as a late return or a payment that was recorded on the wrong date. Do not edit the closed month silently. Instead, record the correction in the current month with a clear reference to the original, and mention it in the review. This keeps the closed numbers trustworthy and gives a clean audit trail.

Teaching the team

Create a one-page calendar for the year with festivals, fiscal quarter boundaries, closing dates and target review dates. Distribute it in Nepali at the start of Shrawan and again at each quarter. When staff understand the calendar, month-end becomes a routine rather than a rush.

Quick reference: what to do in the last week of Ashadh

1. Chase dealer payments due before the year ends.
2. Complete physical stock counts at depots and dealers.
3. Approve or reject all pending returns and expense claims.
4. Confirm the last invoice number of the year and prepare the new series.
5. Export ledgers, aging and invoice lists for your accountant.
6. Announce new-year price lists, targets and schemes to dealers and staff.

How gamitrack handles it

gamitrack stores dates in a standard form and converts to Bikram Sambat only for display, with Nepal-time timestamps. Super-admins maintain holiday templates, and each company sets its holidays, work week and custom staff weekends; attendance understands holidays, offs and pending days. Dealer annual targets split by Nepali fiscal quarter, and invoice numbers carry the fiscal year. Month-end commission drafts are created on the 1st, finalised only for ended months with a recompute, and posted once to the earnings ledger.

To walk through a month-end on sample data, start a free trial.

Key takeaways

• Store dates once, display in BS, and use Nepal time.
• Close each month with a checklist, then lock it.
• Finalise commissions only after the month ends.
• Plan targets and price lists around the Shrawan fiscal year and the festival calendar.