Reporting Periods - Regional Publications

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Reporting Periods

Each ABC Certificate has a defined Reporting Period which identifies the date or dates it covers.

Principles

1. You must report a continuous series of Reporting Periods on a mandatory frequency

2. You can report optional shorter Reporting Periods

Requirements 

1. You must report a continuous series of Reporting Periods on a mandatory frequency

1. Once we have issued a publication’s first ABC Certificate for a mandatory Reporting Period we must continue to issue Certificates for subsequent consecutive mandatory Reporting Periods (i.e. so there is no gap in certification) while the publication remains registered.

2. The mandatory Reporting Period will be one of the following:

   1. Monthly - a four or five week period commencing on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. The exact dates to be included in each Reporting Period will be set out in a published ABC Accounting Calendar.

   2. 6 months, broadly January to June and 6 months, July to December each year.  The exact dates will be based on reporting weeks commencing on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. These dates will be set out in a published ABC Accounting Calendar.

   3. 12 months, broadly January to December each year. The exact dates for mandatory Reporting Periods will be based on reporting weeks commencing on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. These dates will be set out in a published ABC Accounting Calendar.

   4. For annual publications (or less frequent) the distribution period (the entire date range over which the claimed copies have been distributed).

3. Changing the mandatory frequency, is expected to be infrequent. We reserve the right to reject or impose conditions on requests to change frequency if in our view this might affect transparency or comparability.

4. If in our opinion there are exceptional changes to a publication during the Reporting Period that mean issuing a Certificate for the mandatory Reporting Period in full might lead to confusion or a lack of transparency in the data certified, then we may agree or require the issue of more than one Certificate covering the mandatory period. For example if a publication changes from a daily to a weekly publishing frequency during the period then one Certificate could be issued up until the point of change and one from that point to the end of the mandatory Reporting Period.

2. You can report optional shorter Reporting Periods  

1. Optional Reporting Periods are in addition to mandatory Reporting Periods. 

   1. You can report in report in units of whole weeks (with a minimum of four consecutive weeks). 

      • Note: A week is a 7 day period commencing on a Monday and ending on a Sunday.

2. For newly registered publications only:

   1. You can report one or more consecutive optional Reporting Periods (i.e. there is no gap in certification) before reporting your first mandatory Reporting Period.  

Guidance Available

Guidance 

G2. You can report optional shorter Reporting Periods

1.  Please contact us regarding any additional optional periods as early as possible in order that we can discuss fees and scheduling of audits.