- Business day
A business day is a duration of time standardized to the seven-day
work week , used to differentiate calendar days, based on a seven-day week, from the time period when a company is in operation.In the
Western world Saturdays and Sundays are not counted as business/working days. In some Muslim countries and in Israel, this applies to Friday and Saturday.Business days are common measurements in companies with time-sensitive services, such as shipping or payment processing. As an example, when sending a package with a shipping company such as
FedEx , a shipment dispatched on a Thursday that is to be delivered in "two business days" will arrive on the In the United States of America, a work day is generally referred to as a weekday, not including Saturday and Sunday.Calculating business days
Business day calculations take two forms:
Working days from date - given a start date and a number of working days [usually an integer] , indicate the date (usually in the future) from the start date that will span that number of working days.
Net working days - given two dates (start date and end date), calculate the number of working days between the two dates
Basic algorithm - for long periods of time where accuracy is not critical a simple ratio of working to elapsed calendar days can be used. For example if Monday to Friday are considered working days then a ratio of 5/7 can be use to calculate working days from elapsed calendar days.
Although this calculation is simple to implement, it is inaccurate for small durations and may not take into account holidays. A more exact calculation would take into account the day-of-the week of the starting point, the day-of-the week of the end point and any holidays that fall in the range..
When referencing days without mentioning either calendar or working (business days) it is automatically assumed to be calendar days.
hifts and trends
The introduction of
flex time introduces theinternet as a more easily globalized and outsourced workforce. The notion of a business day has come under a certain degree of challenge. Information-based companies with a limited dependence on physical goods have less of a need to distinguish a weekend day from a weekday and indeed to many, there is no difference at all.References
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