18.2 Tips on Rounding numbers using Excel Formulas

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We can use a variety of formulas to round numbers in Excel depending on the situation. We have ROUND, ROUNDUP, ROUNDDOWN, MROUND, INT, TRUNC, CEILING, FLOOR, FIXED, EVEN, ODD and few more. To know how to use all these formulas and how to round numbers based on any criteria, just read on.

Rounding Formulas in Excel

Before learning the tips, first lets understand various rounding formulas & what they do. Look at this:

Formula What it does?
ROUND Rounds a number to specified decimal points (or multiples of 10)
ROUNDUP Rounds up a number
ROUNDDOWN Rounds down a number
MROUND Rounds to nearest multiple of specified number
INT Rounds down to nearest integer
TRUNC Gives you only integer portion
CEILING Rounds up a number to nearest multiple of 1,10,100…
FLOOR Rounds down a number to nearest multiple of 1,10,100…
EVEN Gives next even number
ODD Gives next odd number
FIXED Rounds and converts to text format (with commas if you want)

18 Rounding Formula Tips

1. Round to 2 decimal points

Example: 1.2649 to 1.26

=ROUND(A1,2) Rounds value in A1 by 2 decimal points

2. Round up to 2 decimal points

Example: 1.2649 to 1.27

=ROUNDUP(A1,2) Roundsup value in A1 by 2 decimal points (ie away from zero)

3. Round to nearest integer

Example: 1.2649 to 1

=ROUND(A1,0) By using 0, we can round the value to nearest integer

4. Round to nearest multiple of 10

Example: 544.234 to 540

=ROUND(A1,-1) By using negative numbers, we can round the value to nearest multiple of 10, 100…

5. Round up to nearest multiple of 10

Example: 544.234 to 550

=ROUNDUP(A1,-1)

6. Round to nearest thousand

Example: 312789123 to 312789000

=ROUND(A1,-3)

7. Round to nearest million with one decimal point

Example: 312789123 to 312.8

=ROUND(A1/1000000,1) First we divide the number by million (1,000,000) and then round this to 1 decimal point.

8. Round to nearest multiple of 2

Example: 43 to 44

=MROUND(A1,2) Just like round formula, but for any multiple. So MROUND(A1,2) takes value in A1 and rounds it to nearest multiple of 2

9. Round to nearest multiple of 5

Example: 93 to 95

=MROUND(A1,5)

10. Round down to hundred

Example: 301 to 300

=FLOOR(A1,100) To round down, we can use FLOOR formula.

11. Get only the integer portion of a number

Example: -23.34 to -23

=TRUNC(A1,0) To extract only the integer portion of number, use TRUNC formula. Note: INT formula gives same result for positive numbers.

12. Round a number to 2 decimals and convert to text

Example: 312789.26921 to 312,789.27

=FIXED(A1,2,FALSE) In one shot, round and convert the number to text. Useful when you want text output.

13. Get next even number

Example: 42.1 to 44

=EVEN(A1) Gets you next EVEN number (away from zero)

14. Get next odd number

Example: 44.93 to 45

=ODD(A1)

15. Round to nearest quarter ($0.25)

Example: 19.14 to 19.25

=MROUND(A1,0.25) MROUND can be used with fractions too.

16. Round to next 9 (ie 19,29,39 etc.)

Example: 23 to 29

=ROUNDUP(A1,-1)-1 To do this, we just roundup the number to next 10 and then subtract 1 from it.

17. Round up to next 1000

Example: 124567 to 125000

=CEILING(A1,1000) Just like FLOOR, but takes you to next value.

18. Get only decimal portion of a number

Example: 23.345 to 0.345

=A1-TRUNC(A1) To get only decimal portion, subtract TRUNC value from original

Download Rounding formula example workbook

Click here to download example workbook & understand these formulas better.

What about .2 tips?

Well, those are for you to fill down. Go ahead and write formulas for both these situations & you have the .2 tips!

18.1 Waiter friendly pricing

Lets say you run a hotel where customers usually tip 15% of bill amount. Now, to make it easy, you want to price your items such that when 15% is added, the total amount becomes a round number like $1.00, $2.00 etc.

For example: If a dish’s current price is $2.50, then 15% tip on it would be $0.37. This makes the total $2.87.
If you modify the price to $2.60, with tip the total would be $3.00.

Assuming current price of a dish is in A1, what formula will give you new price?

18.2 Rounding to nearest Monday

Lets say you have some dates in a list and you want them to round to nearest Monday. Assuming you have a date in A1, what formula gives nearest Monday?

Go ahead and figure them out. Post your answers using comments.

Click here to comment.

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31 Responses to “Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you”

  1. Harry says:

    Would be considerably easier just to have a table with the variance shown.

  2. Jomili says:

    On Step 3, how do you "Add budget and actual values to the chart again"?

    • Chandoo says:

      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.

      • Neeraj Agarwal says:

        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

  3. TheQ47 says:

    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.

    • Chandoo says:

      @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.

  4. Neeraj Agarwal says:

    I am using excel 2010, please explain how to apply Step 12

    Regards
    Neeraj Kumar Agarwal

  5. mariann says:

    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!

    • Chandoo says:

      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.

  6. […] 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 […]

  7. Franciele says:

    You're a good person, thank you to share your knowledge with us, I will try to do in my work

  8. Ali says:

    Great visualization of variance. My question is that is this possible in powerbi?

    How would you go about it?

  9. NARUTO says:

    HELLO, WHY CANT I FIND VALUES FOR LABELS IN EXCEL 2013

  10. Amol says:

    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.

  11. Ricardo says:

    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.

  12. MF says:

    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/

  13. Renuka says:

    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

  14. renuka says:

    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

    • Chandoo says:

      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.

  15. Justine says:

    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

  16. Arvind says:

    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?

  17. JEREMIAH KOOL says:

    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)

  18. Shawn says:

    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?

  19. Mihail says:

    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.

  20. Saidatta Pati says:

    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.

  21. Dan says:

    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

  22. sathik says:

    pls explain in detail step 7

  23. Arun says:

    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

  24. aye myat maw says:

    Good Presentation and Data information.thank you so much chandoo.

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