Dealing with Dates and Times in Excel

Excel is fraught with nuances, especially when working with dates or times. In this presentation author and Excel expert David H. Ringstrom, CPA covers the gamut of date and time related functions and features in Excel. He'll explain common frustrations that arise when entering dates in Excel spreadsheets, along with date and time keyboard shortcuts. David will compare the nuances of the NOW function versus the TODAY function, along with techniques such as using TEXT to format dates, NETWORKDAYS.INTL to count workdays in a period, and how to work with dates when filtering or using PivotTables.

David is the author of “Microsoft Excel 365 for Dummies”, “Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures”, and has written or co-authored six other books. He demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Excel for Microsoft 365. David draws your attention to any differences in Excel 2021, 2019 or 2016 during the presentation and in his detailed handouts. The handouts include an Excel workbook with most of the examples he uses during his demonstrations.

Excel for Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that receives periodic feature updates. Conversely, perpetually licensed versions have year numbers in their names and do not receive any feature updates.

Who Should Attend
Professionals seeking to use Microsoft Excel more effectively.

Topics Covered

• Building a series of dates with the Fill Series command
• Creating a dynamic list of sequential numbers with the SEQUENCE function in Excel 2021 and Microsoft 365
• Revealing the undocumented DATEDIF function in Excel for determining the number of months or years between two dates
• Creating a series of dates by establishing a pattern and then dragging the Fill Handle
• Employing the Text to Columns feature to transform text-based dates into numeric values that Excel recognizes as dates
• Filtering transactions by date or date range
• Restricting users to enter dates within a given range or before/after a given date
• Transforming dates and numbers into various formats without retyping by way of custom number formats
• Understanding the TIMEVALUE worksheet function
• Gleaning the nuances of adding time values together in Microsoft Excel
• Copying dates within an Excel worksheet in the manner you want

Learning Objectives

• Identify which key you can hold down while dragging the Fill Handle to prevent Excel form creating a series and copy the initial cell instead
• Select the arguments for the EOMONTH function in Excel
• State which format code prevents Excel from subtracting entire 24-hour periods when summing two or more time values together

Level
Basic

Instructional Method
Group: Internet-based

NASBA Field of Study
Specialized Knowledge and Applications (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
None

Advance Preparation
None