Year-to-date (YTD) is a period, starting from the beginning of the current year (either the calendar year or fiscal year) and continuing up to the present day.^[1]

Overview

Year-to-date is used in many contexts, mainly for recording results of an activity in the time between a date (exclusive, since this day may not yet be "complete") and the beginning of the year.

In the context of finance, YTD is often provided in financial statements detailing the performance of a business entity. Providing current YTD results, as well as YTD results for one or more past years as of the same date, allows owners, managers, investors, and other stakeholders to compare the company's current performance to that of past periods. Employees' income tax may be based on total earnings in the tax year to date.

YTD describes the return so far this year. For example: the year to date (ytd) return for the stock is 8%. This means from January 1 of the current year to date, stock has appreciated by 8%.

Another example: the year to date (ytd) rental income of a property (whose Fiscal Year End is March 31, 2009) is $1000 as of June 30, 2008. This means that the property brought in $1000 of rental income during the period April 1 through June 30, 2008 (= the ytd period for the property).

Comparing YTD measures can be misleading if not much of the year has occurred, or the date is not clear. YTD measures are more sensitive to early changes than late changes. Contrast YTD with the concept of 12-months-ending (or Year-ending), which are more resistant to seasonal influences.

Example: to calculate year-to-date Invoicing for a company, invoice totals for each previous month of the current year are added to total invoices for the current month to date.^[2]

Example

Example: YTD Invoicing report for May 3

 January Invoices-----$ 35,000
 February Invoices----  40,000
 March Invoices-------  25,000
 April Invoices-------  45,000
 May Invoices---------   5,000
                       _______
                              
 YTD Invoices          150,000

Alternate method:

 1st quarter Invoices-----$ 100,000
 April Invoices-----------   45,000
 May Invoices-------------    5,000
                            _______
                              
 YTD Invoices               150,000

Tax due as of the end of week 33 of the tax year is calculated on total pay from the beginning of week 1 until the end of week 33; tax payable for that week will be this total tax minus tax already paid.

   Quarter-To-Date (QTD)
   Month-To-Date (MTD)
   Year-ending
   Moving Annual Total (MAT)

References

Look up year-to-date in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.