A blank cell has the value 0. The date 0 is Jan 0, 1900. The month number
for this date is 1.

Amend your formula to:
=SUMPRODUCT(--(MONTH(A$3:A$87)=1),--(A$3:A$87<""))

I don't understand your related topic. Have you got an example?

Regards
Fred

"ronnomad" wrote in message
...
I am using the following =SUMPRODUCT(--(MONTH(A$3:A$87)=1)) to count the
number of transactions for the time period. When I change the Month
number
to 2 the formula calculates correctly. However, for Month = 1, the
formula
is counting all the blank cells in the column as 1 also (I saw this using
the
formula auditing feature). A fix would be appreciated but I would also
like
to know why?

On a related topic, is there a way to use the Month feature to determing
Max
& Min values for the specified time period?