Today is February 29th, and that means, this year we have one more day to be awesome. So lets celebrate it in Excel style!
Lets learn 14 different ways to tell if an year is leap year, using Excel Formulas.
Why 14? because, we are awesome like that.
Why 14 methods to just find the year in cell D4 is leap year or not? Because, we all know that by learning different ways to solve a problem, we become smarter, more awesome and have more fun. So lets roll.
Before we start..,
Since all the 14 methods rely on certain calculations, I have created some names. See below:
All the names are self-explanatory, except the febDays. So lets take a look at it.
febDays formula
For one of the methods, we need to have all the dates in February in a list. If we want the first of Feb as a date, we can use =DATE(year,2,1). But we want all dates in February. That means, we need to use a list (array) in third parameter of DATE like this:
=DATE(year,2,{1,2,3,4,….,28,29})
Instead of typing all the 28/29 numbers, we can use ROW formula to generate these, like:
=ROW($A$1:$A$29) would give me a numbers from 1 thru 29.
But the problem is in many years Feb has only 28 days, and for rest, it has 29 days. So we modify the second part of row formula and use the last DAY of the Feb, like this:
=ROW($A$1: INDEX($A$1:$A$29,DAY(EOMONTH(feb1st,0))))
To get the last day of a month, we use = DAY(EOMONTH(1st date, 0))
I think you can put the rest of pieces together to solve this puzzle.
Moving on,
#1 – The year has 366 days
This is the obvious one. We use =DATE(year+1,1,1)-jan1st=366 to check if there are 366 days between January 1st of next year and this year.
#2 – February 29th is not March 1st
Because in Excel all dates are numbers, when we use a formula like =DATE(2011,2,29), Excel gives us the date of March 1st, even though we wanted 29th Day of February in 2011. So a simple leap year check is to see if February 29 is March 1st or not!
=DATE(year,2,29)<>mar1st
#3 – February has 29 days
This is another obvious test. In a leap year, February has 29 days. So=DAY(EOMONTH(feb1st,0))=29 will be true for leap years.
#4 – February 1st and March 1st are not on same day of week
In non leap years, Feb has 28 days (a multiple of 7), so both Feb and March start on same day of week. So, =WEEKDAY(feb1st)<>WEEKDAY(mar1st) will be TRUE for leap years.
#5 – Adding 365 to January 1st does not change year
Well, that is obvious too. =YEAR(jan1st)=YEAR(jan1st+365) is TRUE for leap years.
#6 – 30th Day of February is March 1st
If an year is leap year, 30th day of February [DATE(year,2,30)] is same as March 1st. So, =DATE(year,2,30)=mar1st is TRUE for leap years.
#7 – 0th Day of March is Feb 29th
In real world there is no zeroth day for any month. But in Excel, since all dates are numbers, 0th day refers to last day of previous month. So, =DAY(DATE(year,3,0))=29 will be TRUE in leap years.
#8 – April 1st and January 1st are on same day of week
In leap years, there are 91 days between January 1st and April 1st. And since 91 is a multiple of 7, both April 1st and January 1st start on same day of week. Hence, =WEEKDAY(jan1st)=WEEKDAY(apr1st) will be true for leap years.
#9 – Only 2 more months start on same day of week as January
In leap years, both April and July start on same day of week as January. (Where as in non-leap years, Only October starts on same day of week as Jan).
To test this, we will of course use the SUMPRODUCT. like this:
=SUMPRODUCT(–(WEEKDAY(DATE(year,ROW($A$2:$A$12),1))=WEEKDAY(jan1st)))=2
The portion WEEKDAY(DATE(year,ROW($A$2:$A$12),1)) gives all the first day of weeks from February to December. And then we just check how many of these are same as January 1st’s week day.
#10 – Next year’s February 1st and this year’s February 2nd are NOT on same day of week
In non-leap years, there are 364 days between February 2nd and next year’s February 1st. Since 364 is a multiple of 7, both of these days are on same day of week. Which is not the case in leap years (as the difference becomes 365). So, =WEEKDAY(feb1st+1)<>WEEKDAY(EDATE(feb1st,12)) will be TRUE for leap years.
#11 – February 1st’s day of week occurs 5 times in that month
This a bit tricky to test, but then again we have SUMPRODUCT. So, =SUMPRODUCT(–(WEEKDAY(febDays)=WEEKDAY(feb1st)))=5 will be TRUE for leap years. The name febDays has all dates in February. I think the rest is easy to understand.
#12 – February starts and ends on same day of week
29 days means both 1st and 29 are on same weekday. So, =WEEKDAY(feb1st)=WEEKDAY(EOMONTH(feb1st,0)) will be true for leap years.
#13 – Spreadsheet day (October 17) and February 1st are on same day of week
Debra, who is a well known Excel blogger & author started the whole spreadsheet day thing. She says, we should celebrate October 17 as spreadsheet day. I love that idea, mainly because, it is just 3 days before my birthday and I like celebrations. And I also like Excel 🙂 So blame her if you do not like this way of testing for leap years.
In leap years, there are 259 days between February 1st and October 17. And since 259 is a multiple of 7 (and 37), we know that they are both on same day of week. So, =WEEKDAY(feb1st)=WEEKDAY(DATE(year,10,17)) is true for leap years.
#14 – Finally, the year is divisible by 4 and if it is divisible by 100, then also by 400
Finally, we are going to test the whole “an year is leap year if it is divisible by 4 and if it is divisible by 100, then it is also divisible by 400” thing. This is a slightly tricky one to test. The formula, =((MOD(year,4)=0)*((MOD(year,100)<>0)+(MOD(year,400)=0))=1) will be TRUE for leap years and false for non-leap years.
Download Leap Year Test Workbook
Click here to download the workbook with all these 14 examples. Play with the formulas, named ranges to understand these techniques.
How do you check it is a leap year?
If you are working and you get paid on first day of a month, then one clear way of knowing leap year is that you get your salary one day later. Other than this, what method would you use to find if an year is leap year. Go ahead and be creative. Share your ideas and formulas using comments. Next leap day is 4 years away. Go
Want to learn how to Dates & Times in Excel – Read these:
If you deal with data that has a lot of date / time stuff, then understanding various Excel features in this area is a must. Read below pages to learn more.
- 10 tips on working with dates & times in Excel
- Calculate difference between 2 dates
- Find thanksgiving day for any year
- Check if 2 ranges of dates overlap
- Rolling months in Excel
- How to convert text to dates
- Even more on Excel dates & times
Want to master Date & Other Excel Formulas?
If you want to learn how various formulas in this post work and know more about everyday Excel formulas, please consider joining my Excel Formula crash course. It has detailed video tutorials on more than 40 everyday Excel formulas and teaches you all the powerful techniques to become a formula ninja.
31 Responses to “Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you”
Would be considerably easier just to have a table with the variance shown.
On Step 3, how do you "Add budget and actual values to the chart again"?
There are a few ways to do it.
Easy:
1) Copy just the numbers from both columns (Select, CTRL+C)
2) Select the chart and hit CTRL+V to paste. This adds them to chart.
Traditional:
1) Right click on chart and go to "select data..."
2) From the dialog, click on "Add" button and add one series at a time.
One more way to accomplish it is just select the columns into chart. Press Ctrl+C and then press Ctrl+V
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work for me in Excel 2010. The "Var 1" and "Var 2" columns cannot combine two fonts to display the symbol and the figure side-by-side.
Secondly, there is no option to Click on “Value from cells” option when formatting the label options. The only options provided are Series Name, Category Name or Value.
@TheQ47... the emoji font also has normal English letters, so if you use that font, then you should be ok. I am assuming your computer doesn't have that font or hasn't been upgraded for emoji support.
Reg. Excel 2010, you can manually link each label to a cell value. Just select one label at a time (click on labels, wait a second, click on an individual label) and press = and link it to the label var 1 or var 2.
I am using excel 2010, please explain how to apply Step 12
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Neeraj,
"Value from cells" option is only available in Excel 2013 or above. In older versions, you have to manually adjust the label value by linking each label seperately.
Read this please: https://chandoo.org/wp/change-data-labels-in-charts/
Sir, you are just awesome.
Your creativity has no limit.
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Chandoo,
I just found your website, and really love it. It helps me a lot to be an Excel expert 😉
Currently I am facing with a problem at step 11:
Var1 Var2
D30%
A5%
B0%
B4%
B7%
C10%
C13%
D27%
I42%
Though at mapping table, I used windings, here formula uses calibra. How I can change it? I am able to change only the whole cell. In this case numbers will be Windings too.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Mariann... Welcome to Chandoo.org and thanks for your comment.
If you wanted to use symbols from wingdings and combine them with % numbers, then you need to setup two labels. One with symbol, in wingdings font and another with value in normal font. Just add the same series again to the chart, make it invisible, add labels. You may need to adjust the alignment / position of label so everything is visible.
[…] firs article explains how you can enhance your charts with symbols. You can simply insert any supported symbol into your data and charts. To some extend you can […]
You're a good person, thank you to share your knowledge with us, I will try to do in my work
Great visualization of variance. My question is that is this possible in powerbi?
How would you go about it?
HELLO, WHY CANT I FIND VALUES FOR LABELS IN EXCEL 2013
Dear chanddo sir,
What to do if we have dynamic range for Chart. How this will work. can you able to make the same thing works on dynamic range.
Sir Chandoo,
Good Day!
First, I'd like to say that I am very grateful for your work and for sharing all these things with us.
I tried to do this chart but it seems that the symbols don't work with text (abs(var%),"0%") unless we keep the Windings font style.
The problem is, it converts the text into symbol as well and you wont see the 0% anymore. I'm using Windows 7.
WOW - Segoe UI Emoji
This is the greatest discovery for me this month 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Here's my two-cents:
https://wmfexcel.com/2019/02/17/a-compelling-chart-in-three-minutes/
Sir This is awesome chart, and very easy to made because of your way to explain is very simple , everyone can do. Thank you
one problem i am facing, I hv made this chart , but when i am inserting data table to chart it is showing two times , how can i resolve this
in this chart when i am adding new month data for example first i made this chart jan to mar but when i add data for the apr month graphs updated automatically but labels are missing for that new month
Hi Renuka,
Please make sure the formulas for labels are also calculated for extra months. Just drag down the series and set label range to appropriate address.
So I am playing with the Actual chart here - but amounts are bigger than your - you have 600 as Budget - my budget is 104,000 - is there a way to shorten that I am unaware of
thank you - I LOVE YOUR SITE
Thanks for the tips and tricks on Excel. In the Planned versus Actual chart examples, you use multiple values (ex. multiple Categories in above). How can this be done when we have only 1 set of values? For example if I have only this:
Planned Actual
SOW Budget 417480 367551
How can I create a single bar chart like the one above?
Thank you Chandoo.
This one is just perfect for my Quarterly Review presentation on Operational Budget against Actual Performance for the Hospital I'm currently working with.
Just Subscribed today (10 minutes ago)
Is there a way to make the table of data into a pivot table to be able to add a slicer for the graph due to many different categories and months?
Hi, I tried to modify you template with something appropriate for me, and I found a problem. this template was modified by me started with excel 2010, then 2016 and finally 2019. Same thing - somehow appear an error - or didn't show the emoticons for positive percentage or doubled the emoticons for some rows. I suspect to be from excel. if is need it I can sand you my xlsx for study. Please help if you can.
Hi Chandoo,
Could you please check the Var Formula in Step1. You have mentioned budget-actual and when i did this i got different values but when reversed like actual-budget i got the actual value what you have demonstrated in step1.
Please share your view.
This is a great chart (budget vs. actual). However, in trying recreate it, I cannot color in the UP Down bars individually, and they all become formatted with the same color. I'm using Office 365. Look forward to the feedback.
Thanks.
Dan
pls explain in detail step 7
While in the Excel sheet you have used following formula for Var
Var = Actual - Budget
But
in the note, you have written
Var = Budget - Actual
Good Presentation and Data information.thank you so much chandoo.