"DAYS 360" and the date Feb 28th as start and end

[Petteri Tuominen]

Hi,

I'm puzzled why Excel 2003 gives a difference in days as "-2" when using Feb
28th as the start and end date.

I have the following dates in two columns ("H" and "I") like this:
| 28.02.2006 | 28.02.2006 |

and then a third column on the same line, line 1, which has the formula:
=DAYS360(H1,I1)

And this gives me the result "-2"... If I just change the date to 28.03.2006
for both, it works ok, resulting in "0". The formula is working on this
sheet on every other occasion except on these "double-28.02.2006" dates.. I
even tried adding the "true" or "false" methods after the formula, but no
help.

Can anyone help and/or clarify why this is so?

thanks in advance,
-pjt

 

[intruder9]

You are using this function in a way that it was not designed to b
used.

Days360(StartDate, EndDate) returns the number of days betwee
StartDate and EndDate based on a 360-day year (i.e., all months contai
30 days). If EndDate is earlier than StartDate, NumDays is negative

 

[intruder9]

Also if the month in question is over 30 or under 30 excel treats it a
30 so that is why you are getting the -2

 

[Niek Otten]

=A1-B1 returns the difference in days. Just Format as General or Number;
Excel will automatically format as date, which is pretty stupid in this
case!

360 days years are often used in financial calculations; they assume a year
of 12 months of 30 days. This avoids many difficult definition issues for
months.

 

[Petteri Tuominen]

Hi,
thanks for the explanation, although I can't understand the benefits of
using "artificial" months (i.e. all with 30 days)... Or is the 365-way
impossible to code in the sw?

Is there a way to calculate the days as they appear in the real world?

No "Days 365" -function exists.. ;-)

-pjt