Date offsets help you to set up your workflow for either a job, or the individual tasks that make up a job. Instead of having to plot every task into a calendar or manually enter deadlines, you can use date offsets to set dates for various tasks that are automatically pulled through to your job.
You can use the Date offset workbench to check any date offset that you wish to create.
Date offsets are oriented around the job date.
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Quick code reference table
| Code | Meaning |
| d | day |
| w | week |
| m | month |
| b | business day |
| n | the end of the week (Friday) |
| e | end of the month |
| z | end of the year |
Basic date offsets
These basic date offsets are the simplest to use of all the date offsets. They relate to days (d), weeks (w) and months (m).
Adding a plus sign before the offset sets the date as after the starting point of the job:
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+1d = 1 day after the job starts
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+2w = 2 weeks after the job starts
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+3m = 3 months after the job starts
Adding a minus sign before the offset sets the date as before the starting point of the job:
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-1w = 1 week before the job starts
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-2d = 2 days before the job starts
Business day offsets
Business day (b) offsets mean you can skip weekends and bank holidays (currently UK bank holidays only) when entering date offsets:
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+3b = 3 business days after the job starts
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-4b = 4 business days before the job starts
You can also put +0b or -0b on the end of a date offset to easily make sure it's a working day:
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+0b means "the next business day"
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-0b means "the previous business day"
For example, +30d+0b would mean thirty days after the job date, but if it were a weekend, then make it the following Monday.
Likewise, +30d-0b would mean thirty days after the job date, but if it were a weekend, then make it the previous Friday.
Compound date offsets
You can string these together:
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+2w+3d = 2 weeks and 3 days after the job starts
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-3m+1d = 3 months, less one day, before the job starts
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+3m+2w+1d = 3 months, 2 weeks and one day after the job starts
Fixed date offsets
For more complex scenarios, fixed date offsets are useful. Some date offsets are variable, for example "3 months after the job starts". But some are fixed, such as "the end of the last year" or "the end of the next tax year". You can define these with special codes:
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n = the end of the week (Friday)
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e = the end of the month
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z = the end of the year
So how do you use these? Much like the other codes:
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+1n = the end (Friday) of the current week
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+2n = the end (Friday) of the next week
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+1e = the end of the current month
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+2e = the end of next month
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+1z = the end of the current year
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+2z = the end of the next year
You can also work backwards to previous periods too:
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+0e = the end of the previous month
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+0z = the end of the previous year
One important thing to note. If the job start date is the last day of the month, then +1e won't do anything: it will leave you at the end of the current month. This is to ensure that the offsets work in a consistent way for any date. Likewise, if the date is 31/12, then +1z will leave you on 31/12 i.e. it will take you to the end of the current year.
With the fixed date offsets, you have tremendous flexibility to schedule task and set their due dates.
Combining date offsets
You can use a combination of the date offsets listed above to make IRIS Elements Practice Management find specific dates in the calendar.
For example:
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+0e+2d+3n-1d = the third Thursday of the month
Breaking this down:
+0e = the last day of the month
+2d = goes forward two days, so this is now the second day of the next month
+3n = goes forward 3 Fridays
-1d = goes back one day, to the third Thursday of the month
Some more examples:
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-5d-3m+1z+3m+5d = the end of the UK tax year, 5th April (for any given date)
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+1e-6d+1n = the last Friday of the month
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+1e-5d+1n-1d = the last Thursday of the month
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+1e-0b-1n+10d = the last Monday of the month
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+0e+5d+3n-4d = the third Monday of the month