Help.....percentages

[Guest]

I am in desperate need of someones expertise. I have what I thought would be
a simple spread sheet for monthly calculation/tracking of sales figures. I
want to calculate the percentage gain or lose per month.
Cell A1 contains Jan Sales, cell C1 contains Feb Sales. The percentage would
be the difference in cell B1.
Jan Feb
$134,564,702 -0.45% $133,961,470
$3,036,782 -4.25% $2,907,635
$69,544,201 0.79% $70,090,124
Grand Total
$207,145,685 -1.06% $204,959,229

I've tried =C1/A1-1 and =(C1-A1)/ABS(B1)
I don't think the values excel is returning are correct and when I view my
grand total percentage it doesnt equal the individual percentages. Help Help
Help,
Thanks Thanks Thanks....

 

[Guest]

Try using =(C1-A1)/A1 it returns the same percentages that you list but when
I sum up the column I get a total percent change of -3.92% instead of -1.06%

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick response, but when I use that formula on the grand total
I get -0.09 I should get a return vaule matching the sum of -3.92?????????

 

[Guest]

Actually in most cases you won't get a return matching the sum.
In most instances you will have larger and smaller numbers so a
small number could have a dramatic change percentage wise but
not mean much in the overall picture. Take the following example
of two things say your Jan and Feb.

$1 to $10 = 900% increase, overall increase $9
$100,000 to $110,000 = 10% increase, overall increase $10,000

So overall you're going from
$100,001 to $110,010 which naturally isn't a 910% increase if you
were to sum the percentages. Your increase is mostly the $10,000
or 10% increase if you add the extra $9 you would basically only
increase to around 10.01% because the $9 is pretty minimal.

ww

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the assistance.

Actually in most cases you won't get a return matching the sum.
In most instances you will have larger and smaller numbers so a
small number could have a dramatic change percentage wise but
not mean much in the overall picture. Take the following example
of two things say your Jan and Feb.

$1 to $10 = 900% increase, overall increase $9
$100,000 to $110,000 = 10% increase, overall increase $10,000

So overall you're going from
$100,001 to $110,010 which naturally isn't a 910% increase if you
were to sum the percentages. Your increase is mostly the $10,000
or 10% increase if you add the extra $9 you would basically only
increase to around 10.01% because the $9 is pretty minimal.

ww