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How to calculate the number of days between two dates

January 12, 2009 By admin

To calculate the difference or the number of days between two dates, you simply subtract one date from the other.

Example (using format:dd/mm/yyyy):

Suppose you have the date 25/11/2007 in cell A1 and the date 15/01/2008 in cell B1 (both cells formatted as date). To calculate the difference between these two dates you use the following formula:

=B1 – A1

This should give a result of 51 ( 5 days in Nov + 31 in Dec + 15 in Jan).

Note that the cell where you write the formula must be formatted as number and not date.

Filed Under: Date and Time Tagged With: Dates

Calculate the number of months between two dates – knowledgebase article

December 27, 2008 By admin

This step-by-step article shows you how to calculate the number of months between any two dates.

To calculate the number of months between any two dates, use one of the following methods. Note that both methods use the following information:

• EDate = Earlier Date
• LDate = Later Date

NOTE: If you type LDate or EDate directly into this formula instead of into their cell references, you must surround it by quotation marks (for example, “9/7/00″).

Round Up

This method does not use the day of the month in its calculations. For example, given a start date of 10/31/00 and an end date of 11/2/00, one month is returned even though only two days elapsed.

For this method, use the following formula:

=(YEAR(LDate)-YEAR(EDate))*12+MONTH(LDate)-MONTH(EDate)

as shown in the following example:

1. Type 10/31/99 in cell A1.
2. Type the following formula in cell A2:

=(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(A1))*12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(A1)

The number that is returned equals the number of months from 10/31/99 to today’s date, rounded up to the next whole number.

Round Down

This method uses the number days in its calculations and rounds down to the nearest number of whole months. For example, given a start date of 10/30/00 and an end date of 11/30/00, one month is returned; however, an end date of 11/29/00 returns a zero.

For this method, use the following formula

=IF(DAY(LDate)>=DAY(EDate),0,-1)+YEAR(LDate)-YEAR(EDate))
*12+MONTH(LDate)-MONTH(EDate)

as shown in the following example:

1. Type 10/31/99 in cell A1.
2. Type the following formula in cell B1:

=IF(DAY(NOW())>=DAY(A1),0,-1)+(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(A1)) *12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(A1)

NOTE: Ensure that cell B1 is formatted as General. The number returned equals the number of months from 10/31/99 to today’s date, rounded down to the nearest number of whole months.

Source: Microsoft Help and Support
Original article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214134

Filed Under: Date and Time, Formulas Tagged With: Date, Date and Time, Dates

Calculate the number of months between two dates

November 16, 2008 By admin

If you want the number of months occurring regardless of the day of the month then continue reading. If you want to calculate ‘whole month intervals’ by considering the day of the month, then check this post.

To calculate the number of months between two dates, there are two possibilities:

1. Both dates occur in the same year.
2. Dates occur in two different years.

Case 1 – both dates occur in the same year

Use the MONTH function to extract the month from each date, then subtract the two months from each other.

Example (using format:dd/mm/yyyy):

Suppose you have the date 25/09/2007 in cell A1 and the date 31/12/2007 in cell B1 (both cells formatted as date). To calculate the number of months between these two dates you use the following formula:

=MONTH(B1) – MONTH(A1)

This should give a result of 3.

Note that the cell where you write the formula must be formatted as number and not date.

Case 2 – dates occur in two different years

Use the the YEAR function and the MONTH function.

Example (using format:dd/mm/yyyy):

Suppose you have the date 25/09/2007 in cell A1 and the date 31/03/2008 in cell B1 (both cells formatted as date). To calculate the number of months between these two dates you use the following formula:

=(YEAR(B1)-YEAR(A1))*12+MONTH(B1)-MONTH(A1)

This should give a result of 6.

Again the cell where you write the formula must be formatted as number and not date.

Filed Under: Date and Time, Formulas Tagged With: Date, Dates, Month

How to calculate the difference between two dates

November 14, 2008 By admin

To calculate the difference or the number of days between two dates, you simply subtract one date from the other.

Example (using format:dd/mm/yyyy):

Suppose you have the date 25/11/2007 in cell A1 and the date 15/01/2008 in cell B1 (both cells formatted as date). To calculate the difference between these two dates you use the following formula:

=B1 – A1

This should give a result of 51 ( 5 days in Nov + 31 in Dec + 15 in Jan).

Note that the cell where you write the formula must be formatted as number and not date.

Filed Under: Date and Time, Formulas Tagged With: Date, Dates