How to Use Excel's WORKDAY Function

By eHow Computers Editor

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Excel's WORKDAY function returns the number of work days before or after a specified date. It will not count weekends or other dates designated as holidays and frequently is used to calculate delivery times or invoice due dates.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Install the Analysis ToolPak, if needed. If WORKDAY returns the #NAME? error value, you will need to go to the Tools menu and select Add-Ins. Mark the checkbox next to Analysis ToolPak and click on the OK button.

Step2

Learn the syntax of WORKDAY. It is WORKDAY (start_date, days[, holidays]) where start_date is the beginning date, and days is the number of work days before or after start_date. Holidays is an optional argument that specifies the holidays to exclude from the calculation.

Step3

Enter start_date using the DATE function or some other function that returns a date to prevent the problems that can occur when a date is entered as text. WORKDAY will return the #VALUE! error value if start_date is not a valid date.

Step4

Provide an integer for days. A negative integer will count the work days before start_date and a positive integer will count the work days after start_date. WORKDAY will return the #NUM! error value when an invalid date is produced when a number of days is added to start date.

Step5

Study an example of WORKDAY by entering the following in an Excel spreadsheet: =WORKDAY(DATE(2008,10,1),151,A2:A4) returns May 5, 2009. The 151st day after October 1, 2008, is May 5, 2009, excluding weekends and holidays.