Excel Automatically Changing General to Date

[joewilly1]

This doesn't happen for every file but for one in particular...a cell has a general format. I close the file and reopen it. The cell now is changed to date. For example, I have a column that has customer number. The cell has 127487, formatted as general. When I reopen the file (doesn't happen every time) it now shows "January 16, 2249".

My company uses an ERP system called Pax (product of IBM). Nobody can figure out if it's Pax or Excel that's doing this. A handful of people in the company are experiencing the same thing. This is such a problem. It's not really practical to change the format to text or add an apostrophe as some people have suggested.

Thanks.

 

[SpillerBD]

I would bet its PAX.
At some point the cell, or column is given a date value or a date format to the cell or column which Excel is then trying to maintain to be "helpful"