It is possible that the date may be required on a spreadsheet and a calculation may need to be worked out on it. For example, it might be necessary to work out on what data an item that has been ordered will be received, based on information received from the supplier.
Microsoft Excel works out dates based on the number of days since 1st January 1900. Therefore, if a date in entered into a cell that is not formatted to display a date, it will appear as a number. This is the number of days since 1st January 1900.
=TODAY() will return today’s date based on the computer’s internal clock. It does not include the time.
This formula can be used to say what the date will be in, say, 18 day’s time. The formula for this would be =TODAY()+18
=NOW() returns todays date and the current time based on the computer’s internal clock.