The Little Data Book on Financial Development 2015/2016 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Development Database, accompanying the Global Financial Development Report 2015/2016. The book ...

This allows accounting data to be consistent in terms of time frames. Fiscal year-end is the last day of a company's 12-month accounting period, which is used for financial and tax reporting purposes.

Given that this is the busiest time of the year for most retailers, it makes sense to delay the year-end accounting that must take place to close the books for the financial year by a month.