Percentage Increase Calculation

How do you show a 100% increase from one year's sales to the next when year 1
is zero?

The formula keeps showing the divided by zero error?

You couldn't multiply $0 by 100% and get the amount you're looking for.
Where I work....we report that increase as n.m. (not meaningful).

If that's your company's convention, though, something like this may be what
you're looking for:

=IF(A1=0,100%,B1/A1)

Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron


"Karen" wrote:

> How do you show a 100% increase from one year's sales to the next when year 1
> is zero?
>
> The formula keeps showing the divided by zero error?

Formula correction:
=IF(A1=0,100%,(B1-A1)/A1)

***********
Regards,
Ron


"Ron Coderre" wrote:

> You couldn't multiply $0 by 100% and get the amount you're looking for.
> Where I work....we report that increase as n.m. (not meaningful).
>
> If that's your company's convention, though, something like this may be what
> you're looking for:
>
> =IF(A1=0,100%,B1/A1)
>
> Does that help?
>
> ***********
> Regards,
> Ron
>
>
> "Karen" wrote:
>
> > How do you show a 100% increase from one year's sales to the next when year 1
> > is zero?
> >
> > The formula keeps showing the divided by zero error?

Hi Karen,

What you are asking is mathematically impossible. When you divide any
number by zero you get infinity, so Excel correctly shows "divide by zero".

Look at it this way;
If cell A1 contains 1 and B1 contains 5 then the increase is 500%
If cell A1 contains 0.1 and B1 contains 5 then the increase is 5000%
If cell A1 contains 0.01 and B1 contains 5 then the increase is 50000%
The smaller the value in cell A1 the larger the answer. So by the time you
get down to zero in cell A1, the increase is infinity!

Cheers,
Ken


"Karen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> How do you show a 100% increase from one year's sales to the next when
> year 1
> is zero?
>
> The formula keeps showing the divided by zero error?

Hi Ron!!
Thank you soooo much!! I have been working for two days trying to fix the formula for my Board meeting report!

Regards from Mexico!!