Formatting Dates and Times in Excel
4. Accounting Format
Financial data is easier to understand when currency symbols and decimal points are aligned in a column according to the accounting standard.
It has some significant differences from the Currency format:
In accounting format currency symbol aligned to the left and in currency format currency symbol aligned next to the number.
In accounting format zero value displayed as dashes (–) and in currency format zero value displayed as 0 or 0.00.
5. Date Format
Format Type | Example Output | Format Code |
Short Date | 19-08-2025 | dd-mm-yyyy |
Long Date | Tuesday, 19 August 2025 | dddd, dd mmmm yyyy |
Month & Year Only | August 2025 | mmmm yyyy |
Day Only | Tuesday | dddd |
Custom (US Style) | 08/19/2025 | mm/dd/yyyy |
ISO Format | 2025-08-19 | yyyy-mm-dd |
- dd → Day (e.g., 19)
- ddd → Abbreviated weekday (e.g., Tue)
- dddd → Full weekday (e.g., Tuesday)
- mm → Month number (e.g., 08)
- mmm → Abbreviated month (e.g., Aug)
- mmmm → Full month name (e.g., August)
- yyyy → Full year (e.g., 2025)
6. Time Format
In Excel, date formatting allows you to display dates in various styles depending on your needs as show in above image.