Date format
Pet Central asks you to type dates in a few places — your closures, a team member’s days off, your own availability. Date format decides how those are written, and how they are read when you type one.
It follows WordPress by default
WordPress already has a date format, under Settings → General, and by default Pet Central takes its lead from it. That is deliberate: two settings that must agree will eventually disagree, and the day they do, somebody types a holiday and gets booked in on it.
When to override it
Set it explicitly if your site displays dates one way and your staff think in another — a site writing “August 24, 2026” on its public pages whose groomers type 24/08. The choices are day first, month first, or year first.
What it changes
Everywhere you type a date, and everywhere a typed date is shown back to you. Nothing changes in your database — dates are stored in one unambiguous form whatever you pick, so switching the setting re-reads every date you have already saved rather than shifting any of them.
Dates it cannot read
Typed dates are checked before they are saved, and anything unreadable is shown back to you rather than quietly dropped. It also refuses impossible days — the 31st of September will not be accepted just because it is the right shape.
Example
A groomer typed 24/08/2026 into her days off and saved. The field only accepted 2026-08-24, so the date was dropped without a word and a customer was offered the day she was away.
FAQ
Will changing this alter dates I have already saved?
No. Dates are stored in one form regardless of the setting, so changing it changes how they are written on screen and nothing else.
Can I use dashes or dots?
Yes — 24/08/2026, 24-08-2026 and 24.08.2026 are all read the same way.
What about two-digit years?
A two-digit year is read as this century, so 24/08/26 is 2026.
Why is year-first offered at all?
Because it cannot be misread. On a site with staff from several countries it is the one order nobody has to think about.
A date I typed vanished.
That should no longer happen — the staff app now names any date it cannot read instead of dropping it. If it still does, check it is a real day: the 31st of September is refused.