Local Date Format in Excel

[Lycanthrope]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

13-08-2009
12-08-2009

becomes:

13-08-2009 (Excel doesn't think it's a date)
08/12/09 (day and month swapped around)

This is driving me nuts. Is there a fix?

Regards
Dave

 

[Lycanthrope]

Whoops, somehow half my text disappeared...

Should have said:

I'm importing via CSV a file with a date column.

I'm using Belgian international settings, so DD/MM/YYYY. However Excel if forcing all the dates to MM/DD/YYYY. For example:

13-08-2009
12-08-2009

becomes:

13-08-2009 (Excel doesn't think it's a date)
08/12/09 (day and month swapped around)

This is driving me nuts. Is there a fix?

Regards
Dave