How Cloud Uses Dates and Times

Without going into great detail - there is a useful distinction that we use heavily. The created and modified dates (and times) are Salesforce system timestamps. They operate in real time and indicate when a record was created and when last modified, and can not be altered, modified, managed or controlled. Thats a good thing for purposes of data integrity.

 

Then, we add another layer of custom date (and/or date/time fields) whenever we need to manage dates for a business purpose. One example would be campaign expenses in marketing - we track several dates that are meant to be tagged with user managed date criteria that is related to your marketing, not related to when you enter the record or edit it. For Jobs - they are based on schedule dates and times created, and managed by the code in conjunction with the user. For payroll, it is based on the date of the work performed as managed by the code and the user.  In all of those circumstances, Salesforce is tracking the created and modified dates on the records, but that is in addition to the critical custom date/time data that is used and needed in the course of our business.

 

Using the payroll completion timing example - if you complete that job on the 18th it still knows that the work and the revenue are related to the 14th. It also knows the payroll item was for work done on the 14th. Of course, if you told the system that you had already cut the payroll check on the 16th, and thus locked the paycheck, the system would then place the payroll item, although dated for work on the 14th, onto the check that covers the next payroll (same idea as SCEO and other systems). If you are not locking checks when cut, then this logic doesn't really impact you.