In all export conditioning options that require a date, you can enter a date formula instead of entering an actual date. A date formula is a calculation based on the current date. If you have a standard set of exports that are run every month, using this feature will save you time because you can reuse the export conditioning without modifying it for the current period.
The current accounting period is substituted in any export conditioning criteria when you enter =<CURRENT>, based on your system date or the date you enter in Tools » Set Current Date. To substitute other dates, modify the date formula by adding or subtracting d)ays, w)eeks, p)eriod, or y)ears.
When filling conditioning options that require a date (for example, 17-JUL-07), you can use d)ays or y)ears in your formula. For example, if today is July 17th, 2005:
=<CURRENT> + 3y - 1d would
be calculated as July 17th, 2008
=<CURRENT> + 60d would be calculated as Sept 15th, 2005
When filling conditioning options that require a period (for example, JUL-07), you can use m)onths or p)eriods in your formula. For example, if the current period is JUL-07:
=<CURRENT> + 3p would be calculated
as OCT-07
=<CURRENT> - 2m would be calculated as MAY-07
Once you enter a formulated date and move to another field on the Export Conditioning window, the date is calculated and displayed in brackets based on the current date.
Using formulated dates is extremely valuable when you save export conditioning for later batch processing, especially when a Batch Export file contains multiple reports. Each time you run the same report(s), the dates will be recalculated based on the current date without you having to re-enter the new dates.
Always be sure that the Current Date is set correctly before running the report. The current date is taken from the system date or the date you specify using Tools » Set Current Date.