Fiscal Year and Months across the realm

I believe this is a conceptual question, that likely ends up in app design basics.  

I am going to have LOTS of apps across my entire organization, a local municipality.  Many reports will be based on calendar year and that's pretty easy.  However, many apps, tables, reports will need to be based on Fiscal Year.  I have seen in the app properties where to set the FY parameters.  That's very helpful.  But, the problem I am running into is how do I report on FY?  The dynamic filters based on a date field can do this quickly, but only for as far back as two years.  I have several years of data I will need to import for lots of items.  I have a formula I can use to create an entry in a FY column.  But, this field is a text field and gets treated as text, not a date.

Along those lines, many records are entered and associated with a Month, not an actual date.  I realize I could just use the first or last day of the month for these entries, but would rather just select a month.  That's easy with a table that I can reference.  But again, that field becomes a text field and not a date/time related field.  I think that's going to limit me in some ways.  

I think this is just a basic design concept I can't grasp just yet because I am not an app developer at heart.  Any advice/education you can give here is appreciated.  If I need to add some clarification, please ask.  I am aware the above makes sense to me because I am in the foxhole.  Someone from the outside might not fully grasp what I am asking for.

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Gonzo - A Newbie, but learning fast. (Former SmartSheet evangelist who is quickly converting to QuickBase)
IT Director City of New Braunfels
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