Date analysis — Excel Course

Build ageing, month, quarter and financial-year logic. Learn it step by step with guided practice on Excelquro.

Understand

Build a date dimension conceptually: source date → month → quarter → financial year → comparison period. For an Apr–Mar financial year, April is FY Q1. Test 31-Mar and 01-Apr because a one-day boundary can move an entire record into a different reporting period.

Worked example

The year changes in April. This rule keeps Apr–Mar reporting consistent across the dataset.

=IF(MONTH(A2)>=4,YEAR(A2)&"-"&(YEAR(A2)+1),(YEAR(A2)-1)&"-"&YEAR(A2))

Follow along

1. Confirm the business calendar: calendar year or financial year.
2. Derive month and year from the date.
3. Map the date to FY and quarter.
4. Build a month-over-month comparison.
5. Build a year-over-year comparison where prior-year data exists.
6. Test boundary dates and leap-year cases.

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