Excel newbie. Please help in figuring out a percentage problem?

Question

Because I'm only a level 1 here still, I won't be able to respond to anyone who answers so I'll try to give you as much info as possible.

I just started learning Excel about 20 minutes ago, so forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I've set up a test page, just to play around and get a feel of creating the spreadsheet figures, and I'm using a very simple formula: $100.00 - 5.00% should equal $95.00. But instead of taking 5%, it's taking .05%, making the figure come out to be $99.95. I have to up the percentage to 500% in order to get the full 5 bucks less. I've checked the formula and I can't see if I did anything wrong. I've made a screencap of the spreadsheet:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/katej007/excel.jpg

the only thing you can't see is the formula i used for under Net Salary, which was, for Smith, =C8-E8. for Wilson it was =C10-E10 (and so on).

I thought maybe my decimal places were off, but they aren't from what i can see. Am I doing something wrong?

I hope someone can help! Thank you ahead of time!

Kate

Answer 1

because excel is looking at your 5% and saying that's the same thing as 0.05.  And therefore it's subtracting 0.05 from 100 to get 99.95.  In other words it's doing exactly what you told it to do.

To reduce a number by 5% you'll need to be more explicit in your formula.  Either one of these would work

=100-(100*0.05)

or

=100*(1-0.05)

Excel will do the math in parenthesis () first.  So in the first formula excel will take 100 time .05 which is 5.  Then subtract it from 100 to get 95.

in the 2nd way, it will take 1-0.05 which is 0.95 and mulitple that by 100 to get 95 (ie: 95% of 100).

either way is works...it's just a matter of preference

Answer 2

ex. c1 which is $100 c2 which is 5%

here is the formula

c1- (c2 * 100)

Answer 3

5% = .05

So 100 - .05 = 99.95

Try 100 * (1-5%)

If you use Ord's equation exactly it would give you a circular refrence because your answer is in G10.  For your spreadsheet it should be

C10-(C10*E10)

Which is just another way of doing it.  You are taking the 100 gross salary and subracting 5% of 100 (C10*E10) which is exactly what you are looking for.

Answer 4

=G10-(+G10*H10)  This is the formula you are looking for.

G = Amount  H = % of deduction