I am facing some formatting issues in my excel template files.

I am importing data from another file and a cell which is supposed to hold the date value (MM-DD-YYYY) format gets saved as text. I have to manually then change it back to the date format clicking on the green triangle which shows up when this happens.
Same thing happens for an entire column of numbers which are saved as text and messes my other calculation based on these numbers.

Is there any way I can force the cells to contains data in a particular format and then save that as a template. Next time I use this template it will be easier not to worry about the format issues.

Thanks,