Six important date functions every professional should know

Six important date functions every professional should know

You probably use plenty of formulas already, but there are some that are essential for people in business roles, such as date functions. These tools help with scheduling, predicting, and tracking, and they can be useful whether you're dealing with payrolls, delivery dates, or project timelines.
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Here are six useful date-based functions for your everyday spreadsheet tasks:

NETWORKDAYS

NETWORKDAY calculates the number of working days between the start and end dates. It is initially set to exclude Saturdays and Sundays, and new holidays can be specified to provide an accurate count of working days.

Syntax: NETWORKDAYS(start_date; end_date; [hol_range])



NETWORKDAYS.INTL


NETWORKDAYS.INTL returns the working days between the start and end dates. It allows you to customize weekends for calculation.

The NETWORKDAY and NETWORKDAYS.INTL functions are most commonly used in project timelines and payroll calculations.

Syntax: NETWROKDAYS.INTL(start_date; end_date; [weekend]; [hol_range])

Learn more about NETWORKDAYS.INTL and its Weekend codes. 

 

WORKDAY

The WORKDAY function calculates a future or past working day by adding a specific number of days to a start date, automatically skipping weekends. You can also choose to exclude holidays.

Syntax: WORKDAY(start_date; days; [hol_range])


 
 

WORKDAY.INTL 

WORKDAYINTL returns the date away from the specified starting date. Weekends are customizable when type is specified.
Both WORKDAY and WORKDAYINTL are mainly used in scheduling tasks and forecasting delivery dates.

Syntax: WORKDAY.INTL(start_date; days; [weekend]; [hol_range])


Learn more about WORKDAYINTL and its Weekend codes.


 
 

DATEDIF

DATEDIF calculates the number of days, years, or months between a start date and an end date. You can specify whether you want the output in days, months, years, hours, or even combinations of the above.  

Common uses include checking ages and specifying subscription duration.

Syntax: DATEDIF(start_date; end_date; type)



 

EOMONTH

EOMONTH is used to calculate month end dates based on your start date. You can go forward or backward in months.
It is often used in managing payroll periods and subscription renewals.


Syntax: DATEDIF(start_date; end_date; type)



BONUS: If you're someone who enters today's date frequently, use Ctrl + ; to insert it instantly instead of typing it manually.