How to Use Excel's Days360 Function

By eHow Computers Editor

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Excel's DAYS360 function calculates the number of days of difference between two specified dates based on a year of twelve 30-day months. This method is used in accounting for some payment schedules. The following steps will show how to use Excel's DAYS360 function.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Learn the syntax for DAYS360. It is DAYS360(start_date,end_date[,method]) where start_date is the first date, end_date is the second date and method is an optional logical value specifying the European or United States method of calculation.

Step2

Study how start_date and end_date are used. DAYS360 returns a negative number if start_date comes after end_date. Dates should be entered by using formulas or functions which return date values because entering dates as text can cause incorrect results.

Step3

Specify a method of TRUE. This indicates the European method which means the 30th and 31st of the same month are considered the same date.

Step4

Use the default value of FALSE for the American method. This method will treat start_date as the 30th if it is the last day of a month. End_date is considered the first of the next month if it is the last day of a month and start_date is earlier than the 30th. Otherwise, end_date is considered the 30th of the month.

Step5

Examine the way Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers. Excel for Windows uses January 1, 1900, as serial No. 1 and Excel for the Macintosh uses January 2, 1904, as serial No. 1.

Look at an example of DAYS360: =DAYS360(1/30/2008,2/1/2008) returns 1. Note that January 31 is not counted.