Excel rounding

[Guest]

I am working on a payroll tax spreadsheet and having a problem with the totals.
Figuring the FICA tax of a Number say 23.00 *.062 = 1.426. Excel rounds it
up to 1.43. For a 12 week Quarter the total for FICa tax should be 17.16 but
it displays 17.11 Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem?
thank you in advance

 

[Larry Daugherty]

Try one of the appropriate Excel newsgroups.

 

[Guest]

For starters you might try asking an Excel question in an Excel newsgroup.
This newgroup is for MS Access, a database product.

I'm also a heavy Excel user, so here are my thoughts.
23*.062 will always be 1.426, if you round that to dollars and cents, it has
to be 1.43. 12 times (23*.062) is really 17.112 as you said, but if you
round 23*.062 to 2 decimal places (1.43), the THEN multiply 1.43 by 12, you
will get the 17.16 you mentioned.

There's nothing broken with Excel, it just depends on how you do the math.
If you pay by dollars and cents each week, you'll end up with 17.16. You can
also vary the amount on the paycheck, so that the total comes out right.
Some weeks will be 1.43, some weeks will be 1.42. That's what my company
does.