Changing Accounting Cycles to long term existing companies

My company is discussing changing our fiscal periods from May 1 - April 30th to calendar year.  Has anyone else done this in M3?  Is there a guide to show me how to do it?  My first instinct is to create new companies with calendar GL periods and import the data from the from the fiscal year period companies.  

Hello Randi Sue, 

From a Support prospective, we do have customers that ask about this from time to time. In the event that you need to preserve the data is the period that it occurred, for tax reasons, you may want to consider creating a new company. 

In order to "transfer" the information, you can export the journal entries via the Import/Export Utility (Export Tab) Change the Company and Property ID to the "New" company and then re-import via the Import/Export Utility (Import Tab). If you would like more details please feel free to open a case with our support team and we will assist further. 

Six months later we are discussing this again. 

Operations believes that we can have a short fiscal year in M3.  As an example, we wanted to change to calendar year beginning 1/1/2018.  Can make 5/1/2017 through 12/31/2017 be an 8 month year?  Then start a fresh new fiscal 1/01/2018 - 12/31/2018?  That way our historical data will align with our tax years and we would still be able to look at that information comparing months to months....

Thanks.

 Any feedback on this?

Hello Randi Sue,

I have consulted with our Training Department to see if they would have any other suggestions, once I have heard back from them, I will contact you via email.