How to Determine Quarter in Excel 2003

Companies use a calendar to determine quarters.

Microsoft Excel is a great business tool. One important business concept is the quarter. Companies normally break down financial results by quarters. In each year, there are four quarters. These are normally known as the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter. If you put a date in Excel, the program can automatically determine what quarter the date falls into. This means is easier for you to know what quarter the data comes from without needing to refer to a calendar.

Instructions

1. Open Microsoft Excel.

2. Type a date in cell A1. For example, type "4/11/2010" in cell A1.

3. Type the following formula in cell A2, "=CHOOSE(MONTH(A1),"Q1","Q1","Q1","Q2","Q2","Q2","Q3","Q3","Q3","Q4","Q4","Q4") & "-"& RIGHT(YEAR(A1),2)." Cell A2 now displays "Q2-10."

Tips & Warnings

• Each time you see Q1, Q2, Q3 or Q4, it represents a month, so the first Q1 is for January, the second Q1 is for February and so on. If your company does not use a calendar year, you can change the location of the quarters to correspond with your company's fiscal year.

• If your date is not in cell A1, then change "A1" in the formula to the cell that contains the date for which you want to find the quarter.

References

• Excel Tips: Determining Business Quarters from Dates