Why calendars matter
Two clients can look at the same Tuesday and see different things: one is mid-sitewide-sale, the other is closing fiscal Q3. Without that context, an agent might flag a promo revenue spike as an anomaly or report "Q3" using standard calendar months the client doesn't use. The calendar cards fix both.
Both live in Settings → Client settings (pick the client in the top-bar client picker first). Like everything on that page, they're shared — set once, used by everyone on the client.
The promotional calendar
The Promotional calendar card holds the client's promo events:
Click to add an event, and give it a name and start/end dates.
Optionally add the channels it runs on, the offer (e.g. "25% off sitewide"), and notes.
Save — events list in date order, and you can edit or remove them anytime.
You can also upload a calendar file (the client's own promo calendar spreadsheet or document). Uploads are stored with the client's documents so Iris can read them directly — useful when the source calendar is long or changes often.
With promos on file, agents account for them everywhere: scans stop treating sale spikes as mysteries, reports call out promo-driven weeks, and chat answers can reference what was running.
The fiscal calendar
The Fiscal calendar card captures how the client counts time:
Set the month the fiscal year starts in (or leave unset for a standard calendar year).
Pick the week structure — standard calendar months, or a retail structure (4-4-5, 4-5-4, or 5-4-4). Retail structures get week-precise quarters computed for you.
For a retail structure, choose which Sunday the fiscal year begins on:
Sunday closest to the 1st — the NRF standard, and the default. Rounds backward or forward, whichever is nearer.
Sunday on or before the 1st — never rounds forward, so the previous year ends on the last Saturday of the preceding month.
Without a retail structure, choose which days weeks run: Monday to Sunday (the standard) or Sunday to Saturday — for clients who keep calendar months but report on Sunday–Saturday weeks, such as Amazon retail weeks. Sunday to Saturday moves the weekly report to the last complete Sunday–Saturday week. Retail structures always run Sunday to Saturday, so the option is hidden for them.
Choose what "FY2026" means for this client — the year it starts in or the year it ends in.
Add notes if there's anything else agents should know about how the client reports.
A live preview shows exactly how today would be framed — for example, "Today falls in FY2026 Q2, fiscal week 19 of 52" — plus the fiscal year's own start and end dates, so you can sanity-check the setup before saving.
Which Sunday matters, and the preview is how you check it. The two options differ by a full week whenever the 1st of the start month falls on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday — every fiscal month, quarter and week shifts with it. January-start clients hit this often. The reliable test: ask the client for one month's real start and end dates, then read the preview's fiscal year start and confirm the months line up. If the client says "August runs 7/26 to 8/29" and the preview disagrees, try the other option.
Once set, every period reference — quarters, QTD/YTD, pacing, "end of year" — is framed on this calendar across chat, agents, scans, workflows, and weekly reports. Unset, agents assume standard calendar quarters.
Tip: Retail and apparel clients are the ones most likely to run 4-5-4 — if their internal reports never match yours, the fiscal calendar is usually why.
Note: Keep the promo calendar current. A stale calendar is worse than none — agents will confidently explain a spike with a promo that actually ended last month.