FISCAL YEAR vs CALENDAR YEAR
A fiscal year (or financial year) is a 12-month period used for calculating annual ("yearly") financial reports in businesses and other organizations. In many jurisdictions, regulatory laws regarding accounting require such reports once per twelve months but do not require that the twelve months constitute a calendar year (i.e., January to December). However, a new company or business has to decide at the beginning on which month their fiscal year will start, and then stay with that.
Such fiscal years are typically numbered using a calendar year and quarter thereof. A fiscal year quarter is three months (one-quarter of a year) long. For example, the United States Government's fiscal year is as follows:
As you can see, the US Government's fiscal year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year in which it's numbered. The above information was retrieved from Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year.
The hottest purchasing quarter for the US Government, including the Department of Defense, is the 4th quarter. Government agencies rush to use any remaining monies appropriated to them by Congress. If those monies are not used, Congress has the right to take back any remaining monies. Consequently, the 3rd quarter is a time to start focusing on marketing hard to the federal government in anticipation of those buying actions.
Understanding how the process is played will help you as a vendor to increase your opportunities in doing business with the US Government. Another process to understand is the annual budget, including the Department of Defense's budget. You may want to keep track of when the budgets are passed by the House and Senate and finally signed by the President. This information can be obtained through the Library of Congress's website (www.congress.gov). Additionally, when reviewing the budgetary portion of your proposal, you may want to look at specific line items to determine where the funding will be allocated for that fiscal year. For instance, if there is a large increase in a particular procurement (such as weapon systems), you can be better prepared to offer your products that fit in that category.