Glossary
Accounting period
Apr 5, 2024
What is an accounting period?
An accounting period is a period of time used for bookkeeping and tax purposes. The length of an accounting period can vary from one month to several years, depending on the needs of a business.
There are four types of accounting periods:
- Annual. This is the most common type of period and usually corresponds with a calendar year.
- Quarterly. Four times per year (generally four calendar quarters). Each quarter has three months within it: January–March; April–June; July–September; October–December.
- Monthly. One report per month is generated by this method rather than one report per year like with the annual method above (13 reports annually instead of 12).
- Weekly or daily/half-yearly or semi-annual periods also exist but are less common than annual ones due to their limited usefulness in tracking financial performance over time due to their narrow scope