What Is a Fiscal Year Anyway?īusinesses establish their reporting based on a fiscal year. Fortunately, you don’t have to memorize the Walmart year - though most suppliers do get used to it after a while.
Walmart does the same, adding an extra week every seven years so that there is a 53-week year to catch everyone up and avoid having the Walmart December in spring. The standard solution for that is Leap Year - we tack an extra day onto February every four years.
We’ve never come up with a perfect way to divide the year, so calendars usually start off just fine, and then pretty soon they’re celebrating the Winter Solstice in July. The earth’s year, the time it takes the earth to travel around the sun is about 365.242199 days (at the moment). However, 52 7-day weeks come to just 364 days. The four 13-week quarters make up 52 Walmart weeks, and that’s a year - a Walmart year. This allows for a more accurate report of sales. These little quirks mean that the Walmart calendar will rarely match the calendar on your wall at home, but it also means that each quarter contains three months and 13 weeks: a 4 week month, a 5 week month, and another 4 week month. This 4-5-4 pattern is repeated for each quarter of the year. Walmart uses a 4-5-4 calendar, which means that February has four weeks, March has five, and April has four. Not any old February, March, and April, though. The Walmart year begins in February, so Q1 for Walmart is February, March, and April. Understanding the Walmart weeks will help you understand the Walmart supplier calendar. What Is the Walmart Fiscal Year Calendar? Because Walmart weeks start on Saturday, the Walmart fiscal year calendar will always begin on the Saturday of the week that contains February 1. But the first week on Walmart’s calendar does not begin on February 1- unless February 1 happens to be a Saturday. Walmart starts its fiscal year on February 1. Walmart weeks are the building blocks to Walmart’s fiscal year calendar. If you’re new to working with Walmart or need a refresher, here’s a quick run-down of how Walmart breaks down the year - and why.Ī Walmart week begins on Saturday at 12:01 a.m. Whether you pull reports in Retail Link by using “Walmart Week” or by “Fuzzy Date” (Current week, Last Week, etc.), the timeframe will be Saturday – Friday.Your buyer will refer to events that are specific to your business (like your modular week or feature week) by the corresponding Walmart week number.Understanding the Walmart week and the Walmart Fiscal Calendar is important for a couple of reasons: