Why are the dates for my contacts not importing in the correct format?

The reason date details may be imported with different data than what is shown in your Excel spreadsheet would likely be due to some type of setting in the Excel document that is being carried across during the import process.

The simplest and most immediate way to resolve this issue is:

1. Open the original XLS file with the date data.
2. File > Save as a CSV file.
3. Close Excel completely.
4. Open the newly created CSV file in Excel (so that all the Excel data is now removed - when you click on the date column, it will just be the text, not the numerical value behind it).
5. File > Save as CSV file with a new name, or if the dates have commas in them save as new XLS file.

The new CSV/XLS file will not contain any legacy date formatting or date information (only the straight text for the date field) and will therefore be able to be imported and mapped as needed. The content will remain in the desired format.