The way dates are written can differ between countries. For example, in the US the month is usually written before the day (e.g. May 10, 2020, or 5/10/2020), while the UK puts the month in second position after the day (e.g. 10 May 2020 or 10/5/2020). Some situations may require the month to be written as a number (e.g. 5/10/2020). Other times, it may be necessary to display the day of the week (e.g. Sunday, May 10, 2020).
It’s possible to enter a date as text, but the option is only suitable if you’re dealing with just a handful of dates and times. And if you need to change the format of a date at some point in time, it’s much more efficient to enter the date in a universal format. Regardless of how it is displayed, the program identifies the value as a date and saves the entry internally in its own format. Using the DATE function, Excel then enables you to change how a date is written. The corresponding value can also be applied to other functions and used in calculations.