If you want your financial statements to display the previous financial year as column one and the current financial year as column two (instead of the other way around which is the default), you can simply reverse the order of the information in the financial statement sheets of your Excel template.
You should not try to achieve this by changing the values in the "properties" column of the reporting periods in the General Data sheet, as this will cause an error in the XBRL layer after you convert your report to iXBRL/ESEF.
How to reverse the order of Reporting Periods in the Excel Template
If you want to reverse the order of reporting periods in your ESEF file, you need to first make the corrections in your PDF design. How to do this depends on the software you use to create the PDF version of your annual financial report. Afterwards, you need to make the same changes in the Excel template you use for conversion by following the instructions below.
- Open the Excel template you use for conversion and navigate to the financial statement of which you want to change the order of reporting periods;
- Select the headers containing the periods and overwrite the formula by pasting the cell value as a hard value. Hereafter, you will be able change the order of the reporting periods to align it with the reporting periods shown in the financial statements. Below you will find an illustration of the process.
Keep in mind that the reporting periods are defined under your General Data ESEF-sheet.