One of the recurring confusions with databases is how to specify a date value in SQL statements. In the case of dbase, it’s not just SQL but also the builtin language.
There you specify a date as
ctod("<date>")
where <date> is the date in the format currently used for output.
e.g. if you are using the standard German date format:
replace all DATEFIELD to ctod("31.01.2014")