NRF vs Gregorian calendar for period-over-period comparisons  

For year-to-year comparisons of sales and other metrics, you can view the results in the standard Gregorian calendar or the NRF calendar. The filtering experience in the SoundCommerce Retail Application lets you change the underlying calendar structure of your dashboard views. 

In this article

• What is the NRF calendar?
• Enable the NRF calendar in the dashboards

What is the NRF calendar?

The National Retail Federation calendar, also called the 4-5-4 or retail calendar, is an industry standard that helps retailers accurately measure year-over-year sales by ensuring that each month has the same number of Saturdays and Sundays. 

Retail sales rely heavily on holidays and weekends. If March 2021 had more weekend days than March 2020, year-over-year sales monthly comparisons can be skewed by a significant percentage. By the same token, holidays, such as Black Friday, can fall on different dates each year. To ensure that you're comparing "like" days and months, the NRF calendar divides each year into 4 and 5 week chunks. Weekends and weekdays are distributed evenly across the months. (The 445 calendar accomplishes the same result, but follows a different pattern.) 

A key difference between the NRF and Gregorian calendars is the total number of days. To maintain the 4-5-4 pattern, the NRF has 364 days (vs. 365). Every 5 to 6 years, an extra week is added to account for the calendar, causing the calendar to start later in January or even early February. This is actually a good thing for retailers, since most are still rectifying their holiday bookings with returns.

Enable the NRF calendar in the dashboards

This step is usually not required as the NRF calendar is already set as the default calendar, unless otherwise requested by your organization. 

1. Decide on the date range you want to analyze.
   
   In the filters, the selected dates show NRF calendar dates that correspond to the same period in the previous NRF calendar. 
   
   
2. For Compare to previous, choose a time period (day, month, and so on) and select Year (NRF). 
   
   

Resources 

SQL queries for the NRF calendar