Calculating days between dates is invaluable in decision-making and planning in various areas and personal pursuits. Calculating days can help a project manager monitor project timelines and ensure the timely completion of deadlines, whereas it assists a Financial Planner in planning payment dates, managing budgets, and avoiding late fees. The Google Sheets ‘count days between dates’ calculate and track individual milestones.

Accurate date calculations are essential for businesses, and failing to do so can result in numerous complications.

1. Inventory Management Challenges (Overstocking or Stockouts)

2. Payment Penalties

3. Delay in Project / Product Delivery

4. Payroll errors

5. Customer Service Challenges
   
   

To mitigate such problems, it is necessary to invest in reliable date calculation Tools. Google Sheets is excellent for basic date calculations and provides a convenient and efficient solution.

Date Calculations in Google Sheets

Google Sheets is one of the most popular choices for date-related calculations in most of the business. It has a straightforward, user-friendly interface, collaborative and built-in functions. It also has conditional formatting options that highlight the required date ranges in different color codes. For instance, the color code for upcoming deadlines can be unique, whereas overdue tasks can have different color codes.

Using Built-in Date Functions in Google Sheets

Google Sheets has 26 built-in date functions. Let us understand the three vital functions used across business. These three functions let you do date-based calculations without programming and complicated formulas.

1. DAYS

2. DATEDIF

3. NETWORKDAYS

Date Format

Before understanding each function, it is vital to understand the date formats. Date formats refer to how the date will be visible in each Cell of your spreadsheet. Usually, the date will be visible in either of these formats. MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY. In some cases, custom format dates will also be visible. It is vital to have a uniform format before using the date parameters in the below functions.

To have the date format according to your region, you need to adjust the locale setting in the spreadsheet.

• Open your spreadsheet in Google Sheets.

• Go to File → Spreadsheet Settings.

• Under the General tab, find the Locale setting

• Select your region from the drop-down list.
  
  

For more information, check this out.

DAYS: For calculating the Date Range

The DAYS function in the spreadsheet is a simple function used to obtain the total number of days between the two given dates.

Syntax

DAYS(end_date, start_date)

Sample

Calculate the date difference between 7/16/1969 and 7/24/1969

= DAYS("7/24/1969", "7/16/1969")

Result = 8 days.

For more information, refer to this page.

DATEDIF: For Precise Time Frame

This function is an advanced version of the DAYS function. This function can find the difference between two days and two months of given dates and the number of years between two given dates.

Syntax

DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit)

Sample

Calculate the number of months between 12/30/2020 and 11/30/2023

= DATEDIF("12/30/2020","11/30/2023","M")

Result = 35 months.

NETWORKDAYS: For Accurate Working Days

It is a salient function to fetch the net working days between two provided dates and account for Holidays.

Syntax

NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])

Sample

Calculate the number of working days between the dates 01/01/2020 and 12/31/2020. Consider the below dates as holidays “01/01/2020, 01/02/2020, 01/03/2020, 01/06/2020, 01/07/2020, 01/08/2020”. This holiday information is present in the range E6 to E11.

=NETWORKDAYS("01/01/2020","12/31/2020",E6:E11)

Result without holidays = 262 days (Working days excluding Weekends)

Result with holidays = 256 days (Working days excluding Weekends and Holidays)

Note: The NETWORKDAYS function treats Saturdays and Sundays as weekends by default. To modify the Weekends, you can use NETWORKDAYS.INTL function.

NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays]) is the syntax.

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