function for escalation month

[Anonymous]

I’m wondering why you choose the forumula you did instead of using the Excel function MOD. If you MOD the Start Date by 12, then you will always get the correct month for the startdate. I think it’s easier to underand than the other function too, which is really doing the same calculation in longform.

[Spencer Burton]

Peter,

Thanks for your patience on this one and I really apologize for how slow I was to respond to this comment.

In terms of why I use the formula I do to get the start date rather than MOD() function. The honest truth is, the first time I wrote this formula I asked myself: “what logic could I use to accomplish this task?”. At the time, and this is still the case, I’ve only used the MOD() function a handful of times and so it’s not one that automatically comes to mind when I think through a logic statement. So the formula I used is what resulted.

What I’ve found over the years is that I’ll run into a modeling challenge, come up with a solution myself, and then view someone else’s model at a later point and find a more eloquent solution to the same challenge. Sounds like this is a perfect example of that phenomenon!

So thank you for the suggestion. I’ll likely use the MOD() function the next time I perform this task in the real world. Just goes to show, you learn something new everyday!

Spencer

[Author]

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