Excel like a finance pro.
WEEKDAY
DatesCash timing is a day-of-week question — a Friday payment run clears differently to a Tuesday one.
Difficulty
1What is it?
WEEKDAY turns a date into a number for the day of the week, which is how you tag a payment calendar, flag weekend dates, or test whether a due date is going to sit in a bank's queue over a weekend. Its trap is the return_type argument: the default is 1, where Sunday is 1 and Saturday is 7 — a numbering almost nobody wants in a working week. Type 2 makes Monday 1 and Sunday 7, which is what most business logic assumes and what most formulas written against the default get subtly wrong.
2What it looks like
WEEKDAY(serial_number, [return_type])- serial_number
- The date to test.
- [return_type]
- 1 (default) Sunday = 1 · 2 Monday = 1 · 3 Monday = 0. Use 2 for anything business-shaped.
3When you use it
- Flag invoices whose due date falls on a weekend.
- Tag a cash calendar by day of week to see the clearing pattern.
- Count how many Fridays fall in a period for a weekly payroll.
4See it in action
Change the inputs — the formula and result update live. Prefer the real thing? Download the Excel file and open it in Excel.
The same weekend test, under both numbering schemes.
=WEEKDAY(A2, 2) > 5Type 1 (default): 7. Test ">5" says weekend| A | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Result |
| 2 | Type 1 (default): 7. Test ">5" says weekend |
| 3 | Type 2: 6. Test ">5" says weekend |
| 4 | Both agree here. Try a Sunday to see them diverge. |
The lime cell holds the formula — click it (or any cell) to see its contents in the bar above, just like Excel. Edit the blue cells to watch it recompute.
5Common errors
Weekend test is off by a dayreturn_type was left at the default, so Saturday is 7 and Sunday is 1 — and `>5` catches Saturday but not Sunday.Fix: Pass 2. Then Saturday and Sunday are 6 and 7, and `>5` catches both.
#NUM!return_type isn't one of the accepted values.Fix: Use 1, 2 or 3 (or the 11-17 series). Anything else errors.
Shows a number, you wanted a nameWEEKDAY returns a number by design.Fix: Use TEXT(date, "dddd") for the name — a different job entirely.
6Better functions & alternatives
- WORKDAY / NETWORKDAYS — Better when you want to SKIP weekends rather than identify them.
- TEXT(date, "dddd") — For a readable day name in a label.
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