Learn the functionality of Finish Date

I am sorry, but I am having a hard time understanding the purpose of Finish Date. I do not see it List View. I see Due Date in ListView that is not an option available when I am creating a Project/Folder/Task. All of this is confusing for me and needs some clarification. Thanks!

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Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Anjali Mishra, welcome to the forums 🙂

Due date is the date when a task should be completed by, like a deadline for a task. Finish date is the same thing, but for a project, that is to say, it's a date by which a project should be completed. There's also a completed date that can be used as a filter in, for example, reports and dashboards - this date shows on which date a task or a project was actually completed.

Please let me know if you have any questions, I'll be happy to help!

Willie Freeman

Hi Lisa, this both helps and concerns me. What field shows the date a project was actually finished?

Start Date = Date a Project was started
Due Date = Date a Task is due
Finish Date = Date a Project is due (?)
??? = Date a Project was actually completed.

Aaron Kibler

Hi @Willie Freeman,

Thank you for your question!

A project's Finish date is the date you plan for the project to be completed, or when the project is due. It's analogous to a task's Due date. For tasks, there is the system field "Completed date" which records the date the task was marked as complete. However, no such system field exists for projects, though you can easily find the date the project was completed by checking the project's activity stream.

If you need to keep track of a project's actual completion date, for reports or to use in filters, it's recommended to use a date-type custom field for this purpose.

Please let us know if you have any questions and have a productive day! 😃

Tana Rucker

So to confirm, is the suggestion to populate two columns - 1) the native due date column, and also 2) an "actual finish" or "completed date"? This feels unnecessarily cumbersome.

Basudha Sakshyarika

Hi @Tana Rucker 🙋🏻‍♀️

The information shared earlier in this post may be outdated, as it was posted a few years ago. Let me clarify the definitions of Due Date and Completed Date again.

The Completed Date is an auto‑populated field that records when a task, project, or other work item was marked as completed (i.e., when its status moved into a Completed status group). It’s essentially the actual “finish date,” reflecting when the work was truly completed.

In contrast, the Due Date is the planned date by which a task or project should be finished. It’s part of the schedule and can be set manually or via automation rules.

I’d really appreciate it if you could share more about why this feels cumbersome for you and how it impacts your work. Thanks! 😊👍🏽