I am looking for more information on an accounting practice which I
believe is refered to as 454. It assures that every month has the same
number of week days. Any idea where I can find sites describing this
in more detail?

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Clarification of Question by johnnyschaumburg-ga on 06 Jun 2003 14:29 PDT

I am looking for more information on an accounting practice, which I
believe, is referred to as 454. It assures that every month has the
same number of weekdays. Any idea where I can find sites describing
this in more detail?

Hi johnnyschaumburg,

Good day and thanks for your question. I was unable to find any
reference to 454 accounting, but I came across something called the
world calendar in which the number of weekdays are the same each month
(26 days). The World Calendar has been copyrighted under the following
description:
- Every year is the same. 
- The quarters are equal: each has exactly 91 days, 13 weeks or 3
months; the quarters are identical in form with an ordered variation
within the three months.
- The three months have 31, 30, 30 days respectively. 
- Each month has 26 weekdays, plus Sundays. 
- Each year begins on Sunday 1 January; each working year begins on
Monday 2 January.
- Each quarter begins on Sunday, ends on Saturday. 
- The calendar is stabilized and made perpetual by ending the year
with a 365th day following 30 December each year. This additional day
is dated 'W,' which equals 31 December, and called Worldsday, a
year-end world holiday. Leap-year Day is similarly added at the end of
the second quarter. It is likewise dated 'W,' or 31 June, and called
Leapyear Day, another world holiday in leap years.

Related Links:
The World Calendar
http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/world-calendar.html

History of the World Calendar Association 
http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/wca_history.html

I hope this answers your question. If you have any clarifications,
please don't hesitate to ask

Thank you for using this service and have a nice day.

Warm Regards,
Aditya

I haven't heard of 454 Accounting and a quick google serach turns up
nothing but accounting courses numberd 454.

In the documentation for my Firm's accounting software (CMS OPEN from
Solution 6), there is a mention that although most firms will use the
traditional 12-period fiscal year, some will opt to use a 13-period
fiscal year.  I found this strange, but I did the math, and assuming
each period is 28 days (exactly four weeks), you get a total of 364
days, almost a complete year.  Each period will contain the same
number of weekdays.

Some useless trivia (I'm bored and avoiding working out):

In CMS OPEN, which is for professional-service firms (law, accounting
and consulting, mostly), period are represented by YYYYPP where YYYY
is the fiscal year and and PP is the period within the year.  For a
firm using a traditional 12-period fiscal year syncronized to the
calendar year, June 2002 would be 200206.  But not all firms will
necessarily have 200206 meaning June 2002.  Those not on a fiscal =
calendar might have it mean a different month, and for those using 13
periods, it could span two months.

I did find this.  This method seems to be for retailing, but seems a
bit questionable to me.


http://www.the-retail-advisor.com/pdf%20files/Benefits%20of%204-5-4%20Calendar.pdf

454 describes the number of weeks for a given quarter.

Q1:
Jan - 4 weeks
Feb - 5 weeks
Mar - 4 weeks

Q2:
Apr - 4 weeks
May - 5 weeks
Jun - 4 weeks

and so forth.

Each week consists of seven days.

I am an ex-accountant that has used a variation of this calendar
(5-4-4) for the past 10 years.  Its purpose is for comparability of
sales (typically to the prior year), primarily in the retailing
industry.  In my view, it serves its purpose most of the time.  The
problem with this system is that it is not truly 'comparable.'

The incomparbility lies at a company's year end and the nature of
using a complete week.  A full year does not have an 'even' number of
weeks.  52 7 day weeks equals 364 days.  A full year has 365 days. 
Every four years (leap year), it has 366 days.  Each year that uses 52
weeks, makes the year end shorter by one day with each succeeding year
(except for leap year, in which case its 2 days shorter).  Every 6
years, you lose one full week, at which point you have to 'add' one
week. This creates the 'biggest' incomparability, as that year will
compare 53 weeks verus 52 weeks.

Some companies 'must' end their year on December 31st (like for a Sub
S Corporation).  In this cases, you have 'partial' weeks in January
and December, making the comparibility a mis-match, once again.

I didn't invent this system, but that's how it works and why retailers
use it.

Oddly, while sales are reported in this 454 or 544 manner, expenses
are recorded on a monthly basis.  In other words, you don't record 5
weeks of rent expense on the month that you report 5 weeks of sales. 
This goes against one of the basic principles of accounting, which is
to 'match' revenues and expenses - however, this practice is both
tolerated and accepted.

Unless you have a specific reason why you would want to use this
method, it probably makes better sense to record your sales based on a
'calendar' month (rather than a 'fiscal' month, as with the 454/544
methods).

I hope this information helps.

I don't use 454, but a variation of it...544 where by each quarter
begins with a 5 wk period followed by 2 four week periods.  This
insures all 4 quarters in a calendar year are equal.