Table of Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- WHAT IS THE USE OF DATE FUNCTION IN EXCEL?
- PREREQUISITES TO LEARN DATE
- What is the syntax formula of Date function in Excel?
- EXAMPLE:DATE IN EXCEL
- CONFUSION CLARIFICATIONS
INTRODUCTION
Date Function in Excel is very important and powerful option present in Excel when it comes to deal with the dates. DATE function comes under the DATE AND TIME FUNCTIONS category in Excel.
DATE FUNCTION is used to create a date by specifying the year, month, and day as inputs. It is specially helpful when you need to construct a date from individual components or perform calculations that result in a valid date.
THIS PARTICULAR FUNCTION IS USED IN MAXIMUM FINANCIAL FUNCTIONS TO ENTER THE DATE. IT CAN BE USED ANYWHERE TO USE DATES IN EXCEL WITHOUT MESSING UP.
WHAT IS THE USE OF DATE FUNCTION IN EXCEL?
DATE FUNCTION is used to create a date using the year, month and date as inputs. It simply means that we can combine three different numbers of year, month and date as a date.
The benefit of Date function is its effectiveness in dealing with the format issue in Excel. Many times we get confused about the way dates starts behaving in our sheet. Whenever such issue appears, make use of Date function and it’ll never fail.
PREREQUISITES TO LEARN DATE
THERE ARE A FEW PREREQUISITES WHICH WILL ENABLE YOU TO UNDERSTAND THIS FUNCTION IN A BETTER WAY.
- Basic understanding of how to use a formula or function.
- Basic understanding of rows and columns in Excel.
- Some information about the financial terms is an advantage for the use of such formulas.
- Of course, Excel software.
Helpful links for the prerequisites mentioned above What Excel does? How to use formula in Excel?
What is the syntax formula of Date function in Excel?
The Syntax for the function is
=DATE(YEAR, MONTH, DATE)
YEAR PUT THE YEAR IN YYYY FORMAT
MONTH PUT THE MONTH IN MM FORMAT
DATE PUT THE DATE IN DD FORMAT
THE DATES SHOULD BE PUT USING THE DATE FUNCTION
=DATE(YYYY,MM,DD) OTHERWISE IT’LL RETURN AN ERROR.
*IF THE FORMAT OR NUMBER TYPE OF THE CELL IS NOT DATE, IT’LL SHOW YOU A NUMBER WHICH WILL BE A SEQUENTIAL DATE. JUST CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THE CELL AND YOU’LL GET THE DATE IN THE FORMAT AS YOU WANT.
EXAMPLE:DATE IN EXCEL
DATA SAMPLE
We can make use of DATE FUNCTION to enter the date.
CASE 1: Let us enter FEB 9 2020 and check what number it gives as output when CELL IS NOT SET THE NUMBER FORMAT TYPE FOR DATE.
CASE 2: When cell format is DATE.
STEPS TO USE DATE FUNCTION
The example enters the date in excel using the DATE FUNCTION.
CASE 1:
function used :=DATE(2020,2,9)
The format of the cell is not DATE and we can see the DATE is shown as a number. Simply, select the cell and change the format to DATE. Learn to change the format of the cell here.
CASE 2:
function used:=DATE(2020,2,9)
The output format is DATE and date is shown as a date.
The format of the DATE can be changed as per requirement. When DATE function is used, a GENERAL FORMAT CELL is itself converted into a DATE FORMAT.
CONFUSION CLARIFICATIONS
DATE FUNCTION OPTIONS
DATE function works in a very flexible manner and rarely it generates any error and would show some value which might not be the one we wanted.
such as
=DATE(2020,02,30) ( *Feb never has 30 days)
This date won’t generate any error for there are no 30 days in Feb but it’ll show this date as 1st MARCH 2020.
Similarly the following example
=DATE(2020,13,01)
will be treated as
1st JAN 2021 as there are no 13 months in an year but it’ll create one year of the twelve months and one additional month of next year.