Can I create a report in the report writer that covers multiple years?

The report writer will only let you run a report for a 365-day span.  However, you can still run a report for previous years.  You will just need to run each year as a separate report and then combine them. For example, you could run a report for 1/1/2019 through 8/1/2019 and a separate report for 1/1/2018 through 12/31/18.  You could also run a report for 8/7/18 through 8/6/19.