The 03/04 problem
In common United States usage, 03/04/2025 means March 4, 2025. In many other places, the same characters mean 3 April 2025. Both readings are reasonable without context.
Ambiguity disappears only when one number is greater than 12, and even then the reader still has to infer the convention.
Use ISO 8601 for data entry
The date-only ISO form uses year-month-day: 2025-03-04. Sorting these strings also sorts the dates chronologically when every component is zero-padded.
Plain Dates uses native date controls and represents shared or custom holiday dates as YYYY-MM-DD. Written results spell out the month for readability.
Dates are not timestamps
A birthday or calendar deadline often has no time zone. Adding midnight and a zone unnecessarily can shift the displayed date when software converts it. Keep date-only information date-only until a real time and zone are required.