Excel date formula practice: EOMONTH, NETWORKDAYS and more

The dates & times functions, with examples

Every example runs on shipping-log.xlsx, the same sheet the exercises use, and the results are calculated from that data.

• MONTH

  Returns the month of a date as a number from 1 to 12. YEAR and DAY work the same way.

  MONTH(serial_number)

  Example

  =MONTH(B2)→returns1

• EOMONTH

  Returns the last day of a month, a number of months before or after a date. 0 means the same month.

  EOMONTH(start_date, months)

  Example

  =EOMONTH(B2, 0)→returnsJan 31, 2026

• NETWORKDAYS

  Counts working days, Monday to Friday, between two dates, counting both the start and the end. You can add a list of holidays to skip.

  NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])

  Example

  =NETWORKDAYS(B3, C3)→returns7

• DATE

  Builds a date from a year, month and day. It handles overflow, so month 13 rolls into January of the next year.

  DATE(year, month, day)

  Example

  =DATE(YEAR(B2), MONTH(B2) + 1, 1)→returnsFeb 1, 2026

Common mistakes

1. 1

   Being surprised by a date that should be a number

   Excel stores dates as a count of days, so =C2-B2 gives the days between two dates. If the result shows up as a date like 1/3/1900, the cell just took a date format: change it to Number.

2. 2

   Working with text that only looks like a date

   Imported dates often arrive as text, sitting on the left of the cell. They sort alphabetically, MAX and MIN skip them, and date conditions in SUMIFS don't match them. Convert them with DATEVALUE or Data → Text to Columns.

3. 3

   Counting weekends in a deadline

   =C2-B2 counts every calendar day. For business days use NETWORKDAYS, or WORKDAY to add working days to a date. Remember that NETWORKDAYS includes both the start and end dates.