The ability to change date format from US to UK

Tom_3
Tom_3 Expensify Customer Posts: 2 Expensify Newcomer
edited April 2021 in Day to Day

This is a simple idea and I'm surprised it's not already an option.

Please can we have the ability to select the date format used?

The ability to use DD/MM/YY would make it much easier/less confusing when verifying the data on receipts

Answers

  • Nichola
    Nichola Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer
  • DaveinUK
    DaveinUK Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    Just started using this app and it's OCR. Most of the time it gets the date format correct. If numbers are separated by a / it works. But if numbers have a. or a - it thinks they might by US date.

    I should be able to state I'm in UK and that the OCR seeing a £ sign should automatically know its UK date

  • JBB
    JBB Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    Astounding that this isn't an option already

  • bbos
    bbos Expensify Customer Posts: 10 Expensify Newcomer

    Me too. I have this problem for dates that use a '/' also. This should be an option or even be automated based on location.

    What is worst about this problem is that it makes it seem like Expensify just discards receipts it has scanned. When what has actually happened is that it has moved to the incorrect date-based location.

  • JJLond0n
    JJLond0n Expensify Customer Posts: 17 Expensify Newcomer

    Any update on how to do this please? I am using microsoft excel and i have changed to English (American) and used the / format and still not working... can't believe there aren't instructions for how to do this!

  • Cheryl Walsh
    Cheryl Walsh Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 107 Expensify Team

    Thanks @JJLond0n for reaching out about this. Please can you message concierge@expensify.com directly and we can assist you with this and check the format for you. Thank you!

  • Taha
    Taha Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    The absence of this feature makes the app unfortunately unusable for me! Huge shame, thought I'd finally found a decent expense categorisation app.

  • Rachael Hopkins
    Rachael Hopkins Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 904 Expensify Team

    Hi @Taha Welcome to the Expensify Community!

    I'm outside the US and use Expensify for my personal expenses (as well as work ones) - is there any aspect I can help with here? Personally, I have not had any trouble at all with date formats, so I'd love to know what issues you are experiencing and whether I can help at all!

    With SmartScan we should be picking up the correct date format assuming the expense SmartScanned in the country it was incurred in - so if you have found that SmartScan has got the date format round the wrong way, please do email concierge@expensify.com if you can spare a minute!

  • Tom_3
    Tom_3 Expensify Customer Posts: 2 Expensify Newcomer

    Hi Rachel, thank you for your comment.

    Over 5 billion people use a DMY format as a first preference, yet Expensify records and details receipts as YMD.

    This is something which causes unnecessary friction and results in legitimate issues. The fix is SO simple, how/why has this not been remedied by Expensify?!

  • Ted Harris
    Ted Harris Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 359 Expensify Team

    Over 5 billion people use a DMY format as a first preference, yet Expensify records and details receipts as YMD.

    We use the ISO date format as a standard because it addresses all concerns from all users. This will not change. Whilst 5 billion people in the world do use the DMY format, the majority of Expensify's users remain in the United States, where (and speaking as a British person, I also remain befuddled by it) they use MM-DD-YYYY.

    It's likely most of the issues occurring here are due to SmartScan incorrectly scanning a receipt that was incurred through the 1st to 12th days of a month, either based on the region or location of the scanned receipt. For example, some users will SmartScan their USD receipts when they get home to the UK. As their location will show them as being in the UK, their $ receipt incurred from 3/1/2020 will be SmartScanned as January 3rd, 2020 instead of March 1st 2020 as we will identify that their location uses DD-MM-YYYY, not MM-DD-YYYY.

    Another issue probably occurring here is that users are exporting the date of an expense, without including the formatting they require in their own export - which can be easily done as explained in this guide. For example {expense:created} will export 2020-03-01 if used on its own, but {expense:created:dd/MM/yy} will export 01/03/20.

    For any questions about these issues, again you'll need to contact concierge@expensify.com please!

  • Dvcelica
    Dvcelica Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    I live in Australia and this is literally driving me insane. How hard could it be to allow users to select the format the receipts they will be scanning will use?


    "Most of our users are from the US"....yeh, because your shit is broken for the rest of the world and you refuse to accommodate the requirements of non US users.


    I'm glad I was directed here by support. Now I see that you won't resolve this issue, I'll just go ahead and cancel my subscription instead of continuing to beat my head against a wall.