Financial year?

The government's financial year actually runs from 1 April to 31 March regardless of the day of the week on which these dates run. This is followed by most public bodies.

The tax year for individuals and trusts runs from 6 April to the following 5 April again regardless of the day of the week upon which these dates fall.

John Pointon Accountant, Tax Consultant "In business to grow your business"

Sorry for the delayed reply to this subject but it came up during a search for "Year Start". Does the government's year start on the week containing 1 April or actually 1 April ?

How come wee don't have a national standard for everyone like the week starting Saturday that contains the 1 April or even the week starting Saturday the first full week of April.

Because that would be a pig's breakfast. With the present scheme, most years contain 365 days, and some 366.

With your scheme most years would contain 366 days, but some 368, some 359, and some 361.

With the present scheme, every year contains 52 occurrences of each weekday except one or two, of which there would be 53.

With yours, some years would contain only 51 occurrences of some days.

Remind us again what benefits you think your scheme would bring.

Sorry, I'm not in finance just a curious novice, obviously there is much more to it than I realised.

Is there a present system that everyone adheres to ? I guess is the answer that I haven't been able to gleen from the available information, the financial year starts exactly on April 1st, it is calender monthly then ?

I would just like to understand a little better how everyone keeps track, calender monthly,4 weekly, weeks starting saturday regadless of what month ?

If you account monthly, as most people do, you keep each month's accounts from the first day of the month to the last day of the month, and it doesn't matter what day the month ends on. If you are accounting to 5th April then 31st March is close enough.

If you account weekly, which is not at all uncommon, finish on your selected day (generally Saturday) which is *nearest* to your year end. If that means there are 53 weeks in your year then that doesn't matter, nor does it matter that you have accounted for up to 3 days too many or