diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 1001fac..c49af6f 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 Package: vegperiod
 Title: Determine Thermal Vegetation Periods
-Version: 0.3.1.901
+Version: 0.4.0
 Authors@R: c(
   person(given="Robert", 
          family="Nuske", 
          role=c("aut", "cre"),
-         email="robert.nuske@nw-fva.de",
+         email="robert.nuske@mailbox.org",
          comment=c(ORCID="0000-0001-9773-2061")),
   person("Nordwestdeutsche Forstliche Versuchsanstalt (NW-FVA)", 
          role=c("cph", "fnd")))
@@ -17,11 +17,7 @@ URL: https://rnuske.github.io/vegperiod/, https://github.com/rnuske/vegperiod
 BugReports: https://github.com/rnuske/vegperiod/issues
 Encoding: UTF-8
 NeedsCompilation: no
-Depends: 
-  R (>= 3.2.0)
-Imports: 
-  utils
-Suggests: 
-  curl, 
-  tinytest
+Depends: R (>= 3.2.0)
+Imports: utils
+Suggests: curl, tinytest
 RoxygenNote: 7.2.1
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 7752587..296ddf4 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 # News for Package vegperiod
 
-## Version 0.3.1.901
+## Version 0.4.0
   * introduced threshold `Tsum.crit` for sum of day degrees in function `vegperiod()`
-  * made plausibility check optional via new parameter `check.data`
+  * made plausibility check optional via new parameter `check.data` (suggested by @rhabel)
+  * restructured documentation to provide more details on start and end methods 
   * acknowledged funder in DESCRIPTION
   * fixed a changed URL
 
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f9a19ad..62e2d48 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 [![CRAN](https://www.r-pkg.org/badges/version/vegperiod)](https://cran.r-project.org/package=vegperiod) 
 [![Dependencies](https://tinyverse.netlify.com/badge/vegperiod)](https://cran.r-project.org/package=vegperiod) 
 [![DOI](https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.1466541.svg)](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1466541)
-
 <!-- badges: end -->
 
 The vegetation period, or growing season, is the period of the year when the weather conditions are sufficient for plants to grow. This package provides methods to calculate climatological or thermal growing seasons solely based on daily mean temperatures and the day of the year (DOY). Because of their simplicity, they are commonly used in plant growth models and climate change impact assessments.
diff --git a/cran-comments.md b/cran-comments.md
index fe06a17..76c09ac 100644
--- a/cran-comments.md
+++ b/cran-comments.md
@@ -1,30 +1,5 @@
-CRAN Feedback: 
-For future submissions: Is there some reference about the method you can add in the Description field in the form Authors (year) <doi:.....>? 
+This is a minor update. The maintainer stays the same, but the email address changed.
 
+This package checks okay locally on ubuntu 20.04 R-release, all win-builder flavors, macOS builder, Rhub's check_for_cran suite and Github Actions CI.
 
-## Test environments
-
-* Ubuntu 20.04, R 4.0.3 [local]
-
-* win-builder
-  * R version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
-  * R Under development (unstable) (2021-01-31 r79912)
-  * R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
-
-* R-hub
-  * Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, R-devel, 32/64 bit
-  * Ubuntu Linux 20.04.1 LTS, R-release, GCC
-  * Fedora Linux, R-devel, clang, gfortran
-
-* Continuous Integration Systems
-  * Drone CI: Debian testing, R 4.0.1 (2020-06-06)
-  * Github Actions
-    * Windows Server 2019, R 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
-    * Mac OS X 10.15.7, R 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
-    * Ubuntu 20.04.1, R 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
-    * Ubuntu 20.04.1, R-devel (unstable)  (2021-01-25 r79883)
-
-
-## R CMD check results
-
-0 errors | 0 warnings | 0 notes
+I checked that the reverse dependency compiles and checks --as-cran okay with this version of vegperiod.