Calculation of Discounts in Excel

Have you ever wondered how to calculate discounts on certain products/services that you or your firm offers? One of my colleagues had this dilemma a few days ago.

I tried searching around for an answer on Google, but no luck. It kept providing me topics that weren't relevant to the particular answer I was looking for. I then checked Excel's help file and there it was.

Here is how to calculate the difference between two numbers as a percentage:

For example, your earnings are $2,342 in November and $2,500 in December. What is the percentage change in your earnings between these two months? To do this task, use the ABS function and the subtraction (-) and division (/) operators.

A = November earnings: 2342
B = December earnings: 2500

The formula for this is:

=(B2-A2)/ABS(A2)

Description:

Divides the difference between the second and first numbers by the absolute value of the first number to get the percentage change (0.06746 or 6.75%)

And don't forget to click the % icon to format it into a percentage.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to click on the "comments" link below and leave some feedback.

Until next time,

Take care - of your clutter!