Weeks (97b)

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I don’t know if this question belongs in this particular lounge but…..

Where I work we use a 4 week – 4 week – 5 week cycle for our business.
For example JULY was July 2 thru July 27, AUGUST was July 30 thru August 24 and SEPTEMBER was August 27 thru September 28.
Does anyone know what the name of this 4 4 5 cycle is called?

Thanks,
Mark

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Hi Mark

<<>>

4-4-5-Week Cycle? I guess? Why not ask your accountant?

Wassim

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I’m an accountant. I call it four four five. I haven’t got a clue what the technical name is

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I’m an accountant, too, and we called it 4-4-5 the whole time we were on it. I think that’s all it’s called as it’s not a 13 period year, it’s not a calendar year, it’s not a fiscal year…it’s just 4-4-5. We did refer to the ‘months’ as ‘periods’, but the method was 4-4-5.

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At one old client, it was just called the 13 week quarter; a web search for “thirteen-week quarter” turns up a number of hits. A 13 week quarter is not the same as a thirteen period year, which would entail 13 “months” of 28 days. I have seen the former, but not the latter, even though they are both 364 days.

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Whenever I have seen it, it has just been called a “4-4-5,” or sometimes a “4-4-5 accounting cycle.”

I think the romantic name is due to the fact that it is an accounting convention (and accountants, including myself, are not the most -how shall I say?- poetic of souls), and that anyone who needs to know about it usually needs a little more explanation than the name!

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Thanks.

Does Excel support this 4-4-5?

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what do you want to do?

Cheers

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I would like to format bookings and shipments into that 4-4-5 format.
I was wondering if it is a standard format that is in Excel and Access that I could use.
If not, is it and add-on or do I have to use code?

My bosses use this format and it would make my life easier if it is included in Excel.

Thanks,
Mark

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All you have to do is to call off all your data with the transaction date and then do a lookup on that date to a table you’ve compiled yourself which matches each date to a week number.

some questions.

what format do your bosses use? 20010605? 2001q2w13? 2001p6w5? ???
when is the start of your financial year?
is the 445 really 445? – ie do your quarter ends always take place on the last day of the month or do they take place on the same day of the week? is it 445 or 454? or does it vary?
is the year end forced to a certain date, eg 31/12, 31/3?

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Thanks for your help.

The 445 is it. My boss said that the last week of the 445 is the last week of the quarter.
And the same hold true for the end of the fiscal year. December 28th (unless we work the 29th) is the last day of 2001 for us. Any 2001 days roll over to week 1 of 2002.
There is no format that they use that I am aware of. When they talk of a certain month, they mean so in the 445 frame.

I do many of the calculations in Excel and Access. I know that in Access I can set it up for a value by month. I cannot find any reference of this 445 in Access. I was thinking that maybe Excel has this format ( or it is something that can be easily created) and I would import that data. This line of thought is what brought me here.

Thanks again!

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You may want to write some custom date functions, knowing that a quarter is always 91 days, and that the months therein are always first two of four weeks of 28 days and one of five weeks of 35 days. The functions you would write would depend on your needs, but I assume you would need to classify transactions by date into the 445 month system and 445 quarters.

It’s been so long since I worked in that one old 13-week-quarter client that I don’t remember, but isn’t there periodic adjustment to get the 364 day year reset so financial year end doesn’t drift away from approximately the same time each year? Over a four year period there are 5 less days in the 445 than in calendar (445 is 364 * 4, calendar is 365 *3 + 366). Just wondering.

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In my current place – 445 x 4 quarters – we reset every December 31st. In my last job – 13 periods of 4 weeks – we reset every March 31st.

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So the extra day(s) get tacked onto the last month of the last quarter?

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Depends on where the year starts! I think in general both places work to the rule that the first period has anywhere between 3.5 to 4.5 weeks and after that it’s strictly by week and the last period get’s whatevers there. Here it’s a saturday to friday week, at the old place it was sunday to saturday, but that’s just another arbitrary split

Oh yes, and don’t forget that at the last place we had four periods in one quarter.

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