finishDate

Finishdate is a date field used to record the point at which a task, process, or item is completed. It is commonly used in project management, production, and data-tracking systems to indicate the actual finish moment, as distinct from the planned finish date or due date. In many contexts, a corresponding field such as startdate or due date is used alongside finishdate to measure duration and schedule compliance.

In database and software development, finishdate is often implemented as a column or property named finishdate, finish_date, or finishDate. The value is typically a calendar date (YYYY-MM-DD) or a timestamp, depending on whether a date or a full datetime is required. If time information matters, the field should be a datetime type and stored in a defined time zone.

Practical usage includes marking completion in project trackers, calculating elapsed time, and driving workflow automation. A separate field such as actual_finish or completion_date may be used to preserve historical accuracy if tasks can be completed earlier, later, or be canceled.

Best practices for finishdate include keeping naming consistent across the system, choosing a single data type (date vs datetime), validating values, allowing nulls for unfinished tasks, and documenting the semantics to distinguish the actual finish date from the planned finish date.

See also: startdate, due date, completion date, end date, deadline.