Mike and Michelle started dating on 12 December 2011. Michelle is adamant they have been together for 138 days, Mike says 137. Why the difference? It is all in the semantics (of the formula, that is)...
Mike is doing a simple formula of subtracting the current date from the day they started dating. This gives you the answer of the number of days BETWEEN these two dates. Michelle is using a slightly different formula, and is INCLUDING the day of the start date.
This one day difference probably won't break up a relationship, but it could cause a few problems when considering something like overhead cost per day of a production cycle.
Example: If you start production on the 1st January, your factory doesn't stop for weekends, and your overheads for January were €15,000, consider the following in your calculations:
Now this is the type of difference that could cause you relationship problems, with your accountant anyway!
Lets take this one step further....your factory does shut for weekends....now how do you calculate the number of WORKING days, in order to calculate your overhead cost per working day?
Like this:
The Networkdays formula calculates the number of working days between 2 dates. You can either ignore holidays, or tell Excel when the holidays are, and then include that range in the formula too, depending on whether the factory closes for holidays.
The cost results for all these formulas show that while we may jest about Mike and Michelle squabbling over one day, getting the right date formula is crucial when calculating business costs.
This week, our subscribers to our newsletter are getting even more handy tips on dates, why not sign up? Click here.. http://www.excelangels.ie/page_8.html
See you next week, and again, please feel free to ask for any topics you would like covered.
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