Explanation
In this example, the goal is to determine the original price from a discounted price (sale price) and the percentage discount. For example, given a sale price of $60.00, and a discount of 10%, we want a result of $70.00 for the original price. The discounted price is in column C and the percentage discount is in column D. The general formula for this calculation, where “x” is the original price, is:
x=price/(1-discount)
x=63/(1-10%)
x=63/(0.90)
x=70.00
Converting this to an Excel formula with cell references, the formula in E5 becomes:
=C5/(1-D5)
=63/(1-0.1)
=63/0.9
=70.00
As the formula is copied down, it returns the original for each item in the table, based on the percentages shown in column D.
Formatting percentages in Excel
In mathematics, a percentage is a number expressed as a fraction of 100. For example, 95% is read as “ninety-five percent” and is equivalent to 95/100 or 0.95. Accordingly, the values in column D are decimal values, with the Percentage number format applied.
Explanation
Following order of operations, Excel first calculates the difference between the values (the actual change in sales) then divides that result by the original, or “old” value to get the decimal value -0.3435:
=(D6-C6)/C6
=(49500-75400)/75400
=-25900/75400
=0.0688
Note: you must format the result using Percentage number format to display the final result as 7%
