Supports 4-5-4 calendar

Description

The software should support a range of calendar setups, including the 4-5-4 calendar. This calendar, common in retail and manufacturing industries, breaks down the fiscal year into four-week, five-week, and four-week periods for more consistent monthly comparisons. This is helpful where seasonal trends are skewed toward the middle of a period.

Example Use Case

Scenario: An international retail chain utilizes CPM software for financial metrics and forecasting. The current system operates on a traditional calendar setup and doesn't offer the flexibility to work with the 4-5-4 calendar, leading to inconsistent monthly comparisons.

Solution: Integrating CPM software that supports the 4-5-4 calendar makes intra-year comparisons more consistent by aligning them to similar periods. For instance, the chain can accurately compare the beginning of each quarter consistently with prior year quarters.

Considerations

5-4-4 calendars (or any other calendar type for that matter) are often handed in a dimension called “Period” or “Time” where specific dates roll up to these 13 periods. In order to make this work the CPM system must allow for the customization of time dimensions to define months as either 4 or 5 weeks long, in accordance with the 4-5-4 structure.

One done, the system must allow each quarter to include two 4-week months with a 5-week month in between, totaling 13 weeks per quarter.

The lower cost systems on the market will struggle to do this in large part due to their lack of dimensionality. Expect to pay more for the software and implementation when building out these calendars. Also expect to have an alternate reporting calendar should you need to report according to specific accounting rules.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Switching Capabilities: In case needed, can the system easily switch between a standard calendar and a 4-5-4 calendar?
• Implementation: Will implementing this calendar make implementation more challenging? If so, why?
• Data Import: Will our data need to be formatted in a certain way to make this calendar type work well?