While I was away, Hui did a splendid job of starting a new series called Formula Forensics. The idea is to break down formulas for difficult real-world problems so that we can understand them better.
In that spirit, I am giving you an interesting and tough formula homework.
Situation:
Imagine you work for Large Fries Inc. as a sales person. You sell fries, chips, curls and other coronary clog causing consumables. It is not a pleasant job, but you do it nevertheless. The economy is not good and you don’t want the paycheck to vanish!
The Large Fries Inc., much like any company large, has some crazy policies. One such thing is their payment policy for sales persons. It has 2 important rules.
- You must earn at least $200 before they pay you.
- There should be a gap of at least 7 days between successive payments.
Shown below is your sales data since October 1st. First column is date, second is your commission earned.
Your Homework:
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is not really dangerous or explosive. Nevertheless, it is fun and challenging.
Write a formula in third column such that it show the amount of commission to be paid subject to the 2 conditions above. You can use a helper column if you want.
The downloadable file contains correct answers for you to verify your solution.
Download Workbook with Data
Click here to download the homework problem workbook. You can see the correct answers too (no formulas, just answer).
Go ahead and Solve
Go ahead and solve this and post your answers. I am really curious to know how you would solve this. Please share your explanations in the comments.
Some help & more
- Understanding Relative & Absolute References in Excel
- Using Circular References in Formulas
- Introduction to IF then Else Formula in Excel
2 Responses to “Weighted Sorting in Excel ”
Just add a column calculating the "performance" or whatever is your criteria and sort by it? No?
have no patience to waste 13min. Save your time too.
Just thought I would mention, the "weird" custom sort behavior mentioned at 5:45 where "% return" doesn't appear to be sorting is because the "August Purchases" field has the sort preference and since these are such unique values, no additional sorting is possible on the "% return" field. If there were two entries that had the same "Customer Since" year AND the same "August Purchases" amount, THEN you would see a sorting of the "% return" on these two entries.