Shoe Repair: Promise Date From Drop-Off And Working Days

All versions

The claim ticket needs a ready date, and it needs to be a day the shop is open. Adding 3 to a Wednesday gives Saturday, which is fine; adding 3 to a Thursday gives Sunday, which is not. WORKDAY counts only business days and skips any holidays you give it, so the promise date is always one you can keep.

Quick formula: Drop-off date plus working days, skipping weekends and listed holidays:

=WORKDAY(B2,C2,$D$2)

Dropped off Wednesday, September 23 with a 3-day turnaround: Thursday, Friday, Monday — ready Monday, September 28.

Functions used (tap for the full reference guide):

WORKDAY TEXT

The example

Three tickets. The Thanksgiving-week job shows the holiday being skipped: two working days from Wednesday the 25th lands on Monday the 30th, not Friday.

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Job	Dropped off	Work days	Holiday	Promise date
2	Resole, men's oxford	Wed 9/23/2026	3	11/26/2026	Mon 9/28/2026
3	Heel tips, pair	Fri 9/25/2026	5		Fri 10/2/2026
4	Boot stretch + condition	Wed 11/25/2026	2		Mon 11/30/2026

The formula

One function, three arguments:

=WORKDAY(B2,C2,$D$2) // start date, working days to add, holiday list

How it works

WORKDAY walks forward one business day at a time:

B2 is the drop-off date. It must be a real date, not text — if the cell is left-aligned, Excel is not seeing a date.
C2 is the number of working days to add. Day zero is the drop-off itself, so a 3-day turnaround means the third business day after.
$D$2 is the holiday list. Locked with dollar signs so it stays put when the formula fills down. It can be one cell or a whole range.
Saturday and Sunday are skipped automatically. If you are open Saturdays, see the WORKDAY.INTL variation.

Format the result as a date, or wrap it in TEXT(...,"ddd m/d") for the printed ticket so the customer sees "Mon 9/28".

Try it: interactive demo

Interactive

Enter the drop-off date and working days; the demo skips Saturdays and Sundays.

Drop-off (YYYY-MM-DD)

Working days

Holiday (YYYY-MM-DD, optional)

Variations

Open on Saturdays

WORKDAY.INTL lets you say which days are the weekend. Code 11 means Sunday only.

=WORKDAY.INTL(B2,C2,11,$D$2)

Printed ticket text

Turn the date into "Ready Mon 9/28" for the stub.

="Ready "&TEXT(WORKDAY(B2,C2,$D$2),"ddd m/d")

Pitfalls & errors

A drop-off typed as text ("9/23" in some locales, or with a stray space) gives #VALUE!. Use a real date cell, and check it right-aligns.

Keep the holiday list on its own sheet as a range and reference the whole range. One list serves every ticket, and adding a closure day fixes every promise date at once.

Forgetting the dollar signs on the holiday reference means row 3 looks at D3, row 4 at D4 — empty cells — and the holiday is silently ignored on every ticket but the first.

Practice workbook

📊

Download the free Shoe Repair: Promise Date From Drop-Off And Working Days practice workbook

Edit the yellow drop-off, working-day and holiday cells; the promise date recalculates.

Frequently asked questions

Does WORKDAY count the drop-off day?

No. The start date is day zero. WORKDAY(Wed, 1) is Thursday. If your shop counts the drop-off day as day one when it comes in before noon, subtract 1 from the days argument for morning tickets.

What if the drop-off itself is a Saturday?

WORKDAY starts counting from the next business day, so a Saturday drop-off with 3 days is ready Wednesday — Mon, Tue, Wed. If you work Saturdays, use WORKDAY.INTL with weekend code 11 so Saturdays count.

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Function references: WORKDAY TEXT