Importing xls files to Zoho sheets

Importing xls files to Zoho sheets

Hi,
I created an INVOICE report in ZOHO CRM, one of the columns is the Invoice date in dd/mm/yyyy format.
I exported this report in .xls format, saved it and then imported it to ZOHO SHEETS.
The problem is with the date field.
It shows as:
'01/07/2008
The apostrophe makes the date unusable, and it can't be removed with the replace command, because it is only visible in the Formula bar, not the actual column data.
Can you help?
Christopher