📊 Excel Basics #29 – TODAY(), NOW() & Basic Date Functions

Dates are extremely important in Excel, especially when working with sales, invoices, employee data, projects, and deadlines.

Excel provides built-in functions to work with the current date and time.

📌 1. TODAY() Function

"TODAY()" returns the current date.

Syntax:

=TODAY()

Example:

If today's date is 17-Aug-2026, the formula returns:

17-Aug-2026

The value automatically updates when Excel recalculates on a different day.

📌 2. NOW() Function

"NOW()" returns the current date and time.

Syntax:

=NOW()

Example:

17-Aug-2026 13:08

The exact displayed format depends on your cell formatting and system settings.

📌 TODAY() vs NOW()

"TODAY()" → Current date

"NOW()" → Current date + time

📌 3. Calculate Days Since a Date

Suppose an employee's joining date is in "A2".

Formula:

=TODAY()-A2

This returns the number of days between the joining date and today.

💡 Example:

Joining Date → "01-Jan-2026"

Formula:

=TODAY()-A2

Result → Number of days since joining.

📌 4. Check Whether a Date Has Passed

Suppose a project deadline is in "A2".

Formula:

=IF(A2<TODAY(),"Overdue","Not Overdue")

Excel checks whether the deadline is before today's date.

📌 5. Check Whether a Deadline Is Today

=IF(A2=TODAY(),"Due Today","Other")

This can be useful for task trackers and deadline reports.

📌 6. Extract Date Components

Excel also provides:

=DAY(A2) → Extracts the day

=MONTH(A2) → Extracts the month

=YEAR(A2) → Extracts the year

Example:

If "A2 = 17-Aug-2026"

=DAY(A2) → Result: 17

=MONTH(A2) → Result: 8

=YEAR(A2) → Result: 2026

📌 Real-World Example

Task Due Date Status

Report 15-Aug-2026 Overdue

Dashboard 17-Aug-2026 Due Today

Presentation 25-Aug-2026 Not Due

Formula in C2:

=IF(B2<TODAY(),"Overdue",IF(B2=TODAY(),"Due Today","Not Due"))

You can copy the formula down for all tasks.

📌 Common Mistakes

❌ Treating dates stored as text as real Excel dates.

❌ Forgetting that "NOW()" includes both date and time.

❌ Assuming "TODAY()" is a fixed value—it changes as the date changes.

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