A company’s accounting year. Due to the nature of that particular business, some companies do not use the calendar year for their bookkeeping. A typical example is the department store that finds December 31 too early a date to close its books after the Christmas rush. For that reason many stores wind up their accounting year on January 31. Their financial year, therefore, runs from February 1 of one year through January 31 of the next. The financial year of other companies may run from July 1 through the following June 30. Most companies though, operate on a calendar year basis.
