My dates imported as five-digit numbers
A column that should hold dates contains numbers around 45000 instead.
Why it happens
- Spreadsheets do not store dates as text.
- That the sort order still works is the giveaway.
- Converting requires knowing which starting point was used, and there is more than one.
- So a five-digit number is not self-describing.
What to do now
- Format the column as a date in the tool that produced the file.
- If you have to convert outside that tool, confirm which system the file came from first, then check a row whose real date you already know before converting the rest.
- Ask for the export again with the date column formatted, or better, as ISO text.
- Be careful with any date before March 1900 if you converted by hand.
Next time
A date field will not accept a bare 45678, and refuses it by name rather than converting it.
Start from the invoice line items template.
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