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Start and fiscal years (STYEAR and FISYR) in the Core files (Technical Note)

For some records, especially the older ones, as many as 10% of the records will be marked as "NA" since we cannot determine exactly when the fiscal year ended. In general, we recommend using the start year (STYEAR) rather than the FISYR variable for the Core files. If fiscal year (which is the same as the ending year for the accounting period) is used, the researcher may wish to assume that the fiscal year is the same as the start year when fiscal year is unavailable. (This occurs more frequently than fiscal years spanning two calendar years.)