Date Formats

You can change the company, subsidiary, and user settings to use a different date format than the default setting. You can select the formats to use when displaying abbreviated and full dates. The abbreviated date format appears on reports, forms, and data-entry pages. The long date format is used when forms or templates require a non-abbreviated date format. You can choose between U.S. or international formats for dates, but some date formats are only available in specific locales.

Regardless of which date formats you choose, when you click the Pick icon or link next to a date field, a calendar opens that you can use to select a date.

To change the date format, do one of the following:

If you enter a date in the DD/MM/YYYY format or the MM/DD/YYYY format, but the month or day only consists of a single numeral, a zero will be added in front of the single numeral automatically.

For example, 1/1/2000 will be changed to 01/01/2000.

Note:

By default, users can override the date formats you select. To prevent this, go to Setup > Company > General Preferences. On the Overriding Preferences subtab, next to Date Format or Long Date Format, clear the Allow Override box.

Setting date formats

By default, the format M/D/YYYY is used to display dates.

The following table shows the available date formats and examples of how March 5, 2018 would appear when the different formats are applied.

Date Format

Example

M/D/YYYY

3/5/2018

D/M/YYYY

5/3/2018

D-Mon-YYYY

5-Mar-2018

D.M.YYYY

5.3.2018

D-MONTH-YYYY

5-March-2018

D MONTH, YYYY

5 March, 2018

YYYY/M/D

2018/3/5

YYYY-M-D

2018-3-5

DD/MM/YYYY

05/03/2018

DD-Mon-YYYY

05-Mar-2018

DD.MM.YYYY

05.03.2018

DD-MONTH-YYYY

05-March-2018

DD MONTH, YYYY

05 March, 2018

MM/DD/YYYY

03/05/2018

YYYY/MM/DD

2018/03/05

YYYY-MM-DD

2018-03-05

Note:

Not all date formats are available in all locations. Depending on your location, some of the format options may not be available.

Important:

If you omit the punctuation (slash marks, hyphens, and periods) when you enter dates into fields, you must enter all of the digits, including leading zeroes. For example, if you want to enter the date March 5, 2018 into a field but you do not want to include any of the punctuation included in the date format, you need to enter the date as 03052018.

Setting long date formats

On the General Preferences page, you can select the date format that you want to use when forms or templates use a non-abbreviated date format.

The following table shows the available date formats and examples of how March 5, 2018 would appear when the different formats are applied.

Long Date Format

Example

Month D, YYYY

March 5, 2018

D Month YYYY

5 March 2018

YYYY Month D

2018 March 5

Month DD, YYYY

March 05, 2018

DD Month YYYY

05 March 2018

YYYY Month DD

2018 March 05

Note:

Not all date formats are available in all locations. Depending on your location, some of the format options may not be available.

Related Topics

General Notices