Date Input Formats

There are several accepted input formats for dates. You have three different options for separating the date parts. You should use either forward slash, dash or a dot (full stop).

You cannot combine separators in a date. Entering 15/03/2004 is valid, but 15/03-2004 is not valid.

These separators work for all the different display formats. Thus, if your display format is a forward slash to display dates you can still enter dates using a dash.

Valid Input Formats
Format	Example	Explanation
?	?	If you enter a question mark, todays date will be selected
dd	15	If you enter the date only it will be interpreted as the date in the current month
dd-	15-	If you enter the date only followed by a '-' sign it will be interpreted as the date in the previous month
dd+	15+	If you enter the date only followed by a '+' sign it will be interpreted as the date in the following month
dd/mm dd.mm dd-mm	15/03 15.03 15-03	If you enter the date and the month it will be interpreted as the the date and month in the current year
dd/mm/yyyy dd.mm.yyyy dd-mm-yyyy	15/03/2004 15-03-2004 15.3.2004	You can enter the full date starting with the day.
yyyy/mm/dd yyyy.mm.dd yyyy-mm-dd	2004/03/15 2004-03-15 2004.3.15	You can enter the full date starting with the year.
ddmmyyyy	15032004	You can enter the full date without any separators.

Pattern Rules

You should note that if you use separators, you do not need to enter any leading zeros for numbers less than 10. For example, 3/7 is equal to 03/07. However, if you do not use separators, you have to strictly follow the format pattern. You can enter 03072004, but 0372004 will produce an invalid date.

Full Year

You do not need to enter the full year. When you enter a year with 1 or 2 digits 2000 will be added to the year. If you use the yyyy/mm/dd (yyyy-mm-dd and yyyy.mm.dd) format, you cannot use 2-digit years .

Entering Dates

When you have entered a value in a date field, the date will be converted to the standard display format. You should verify that the converted date is the date you intended to enter. The date will not be validated until you perform an operation involving the date, for instance saving a sales order or a supplier invoice.

When a date is validated the program checks if it is both valid and acceptable. A valid date means that the value can be interpreted as a date. An acceptable date means that the date is within a meaningful range. For instance, in some cases you cannot enter a future date. Even if the date is valid, it may be rejected because it is not acceptable.

Date Display Format

Dates are displayed according to the standard date format for your country of operation. In South Africa the display format is dd/mm/yyyy