Its major advantage over a regular calendar is that each period is the same length and ends on the same day of the week, which is useful for planning manufacturing or work shifts.
Any day of the week may be used, and Saturday and Sunday are common because the business may more easily be closed for counting inventory and other end-of-year accounting activities.
There are two methods permitted by generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, by US Internal Revenue Code Regulation 1.441-2[1] IRS Publication 538,[2] as well as the International Financial Reporting Standards.
[3][full citation needed] Under this method, the company's fiscal year is defined as the final Saturday (or other day selected) in the fiscal year end month.
At that point, it resets to the end of the month (August 31) or earlier and the fiscal year has 53 weeks instead of 52.