Formulas and functions are the building blocks of working with numeric data in Excel.

This
article introduces you to formulas and functions.

In this article, we will cover the following topics.

 What is Formulas in Excel?

 Mistakes to avoid when working with formulas in Excel
 What is Function in Excel?
 The importance of functions
 Common functions
 Numeric Functions
 String functions
 Date Time functions
 V Lookup function

Tutorials Data
For this tutorial, we will work with the following datasets.

Home supplies budget

S/N ITEM QTY PRICE SUBTOTAL Is it Affordable?

1 Mangoes 9 600
2 Oranges 3 1200
3 Tomatoes 1 2500
4 Cooking Oil 5 6500
5 Tonic Water 13 3900
House Building Project Schedule

S/N ITEM START DATE END DATE DURATION (DAYS)

1 Survey land 04/02/2015 07/02/2015
2 Lay Foundation 10/02/2015 15/02/2015
3 Roofing 27/02/2015 03/03/2015
4 Painting 09/03/2015 21/03/2015

What is Formulas in Excel?

FORMULAS IN EXCEL is an expression that operates on values in a range of cell addresses
and operators. For example, =A1+A2+A3, which finds the sum of the range of values from cell
A1 to cell A3. An example of a formula made up of discrete values like =6*3.
=A2 * D2 / 2
HERE,
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 "=" tells Excel that this is a formula, and it should evaluate it.

 "A2" * D2" makes reference to cell addresses A2 and D2 then multiplies the values
found in these cell addresses.
 "/" is the division arithmetic operator
 "2" is a discrete value

Formulas practical exercise

We will work with the sample data for the home budget to calculate the subtotal.
  Create a new workbook in Excel
 Enter the data shown in the home supplies budget above.
 Your worksheet should look as follows.

We will now write the formula that calculates the subtotal

Set the focus to cell E4

Enter the following formula.

=C4*D4
HERE,

 "C4*D4" uses the arithmetic operator multiplication (*) to multiply the value of the cell
address C4 and D4.

Press enter key

You will get the following result

The following animated image shows you how to auto select cell address and apply the
same formula to other rows.
Mistakes to avoid when working with formulas in Excel
1. Remember the rules of Brackets of Division, Multiplication, Addition, &
Subtraction (BODMAS). This means expressions are brackets are evaluated first. For
arithmetic operators, the division is evaluated first followed by multiplication then
addition and subtraction is the last one to be evaluated. Using this rule, we can
rewrite the above formula as =(A2 * D2) / 2. This will ensure that A2 and D2 are first
evaluated then divided by two.
2. Excel spreadsheet formulas usually work with numeric data; you can take advantage
of data validation to specify the type of data that should be accepted by a cell i.e.
numbers only.
3. To ensure that you are working with the correct cell addresses referenced in the
formulas, you can press F2 on the keyboard. This will highlight the cell addresses used
in the formula, and you can cross check to ensure they are the desired cell addresses.
4. When you are working with many rows, you can use serial numbers for all the rows
and have a record count at the bottom of the sheet. You should compare the serial
number count with the record total to ensure that your formulas included all the rows.
Check Out
Top 10 Excel Spreadsheet Formulas

What is Function in Excel?

FUNCTION IN EXCEL is a predefined formula that is used for specific values in a particular
order. Function is used for quick tasks like finding the sum, count, average, maximum value,
and minimum values for a range of cells. For example, cell A3 below contains the SUM
function which calculates the sum of the range A1:A2.

 SUM for summation of a range of numbers

 AVERAGE for calculating the average of a given range of numbers
 COUNT for counting the number of items in a given range

The importance of functions

Functions increase user productivity when working with excel. Let’s say you would like
to get the grand total for the above home supplies budget. To make it simpler, you can use a
formula to get the grand total. Using a formula, you would have to reference the cells E4
through to E8 one by one. You would have to use the following formula.
= E4 + E5 + E6 + E7 + E8
With a function, you would write the above formula as

=SUM (E4:E8)
As you can see from the above function used to get the sum of a range of cells, it is much
more efficient to use a function to get the sum than using the formula which will have to
reference a lot of cells.

Common functions
Let’s look at some of the most commonly used functions in ms excel formulas. We will start
with statistical functions.

S/N FUNCTION CATEGORY DESCRIPTION USAGE

01 SUM Math & Trig Adds all the values in a range of cells =SUM(E4:E8)
02 MIN Statistical Finds the minimum value in a range of cells =MIN(E4:E8)
03 MAX Statistical Finds the maximum value in a range of cells =MAX(E4:E8)
04 AVERAGE Statistical Calculates the average value in a range of cells =AVERAGE(E4:E8)
05 COUNT Statistical Counts the number of cells in a range of cells =COUNT(E4:E8)
06 LEN Text Returns the number of characters in a string text =LEN(B7)
Adds all the values in a range of cells that meet a specified
07 SUMIF Math & Trig criteria. =SUMIF(D4:D8,”>=10
=SUMIF(range,criteria,[sum_range])
S/N FUNCTION CATEGORY DESCRIPTION USAGE
Calculates the average value in a range of cells that meet the
AVERAGEI =AVERAGEIF(F4:F8,
08 Statistical specified criteria.
F )
=AVERAGEIF(range,criteria,[average_range])
09 DAYS Date & Time Returns the number of days between two dates =DAYS(D4,C4)
10 NOW Date & Time Returns the current system date and time =NOW()

Numeric Functions
As the name suggests, these functions operate on numeric data. The following table shows
some of the common numeric functions.

S/N FUNCTION CATEGORY DESCRIPTION USAGE

1 ISNUMBER Information Returns True if the supplied value is numeric and False if it is not numeric =ISNUM
2 RAND Math & Trig Generates a random number between 0 and 1 =RAND
3 ROUND Math & Trig Rounds off a decimal value to the specified number of decimal points =ROUN
4 MEDIAN Statistical Returns the number in the middle of the set of given numbers =MEDIA
5 PI Math & Trig Returns the value of Math Function PI(π) =PI()
Returns the result of a number raised to a power.
6 POWER Math & Trig =POWE
POWER( number, power )
7 MOD Math & Trig Returns the Remainder when you divide two numbers =MOD(1
8 ROMAN Math & Trig Converts a number to roman numerals =ROMA

String functions
These basic excel functions are used to manipulate text data. The following table shows
some of the common string functions.

CATEGOR
S/N FUNCTION DESCRIPTION USAGE COM
Y
Returns a number of specified characters Left 4
1 LEFT Text =LEFT(“GURU99”,4)
from the start (left-hand side) of a string of “GU
Returns a number of specified characters Right
2 RIGHT Text =RIGHT(“GURU99”,2)
from the end (right-hand side) of a string of “GU
Retrieves a number of characters from the
middle of a string from a specified start Retrie
3 MID Text =MID(“GURU99”,2,3)
position and length. Chara
=MID (text, start_num, num_chars)
Returns True if the supplied parameter is value
4 ISTEXT Information =ISTEXT(value)
Text to che
Returns the starting position of a text string
within another text string. This function is Find o
5 FIND Text case-sensitive. =FIND(“oo”,”Roofing”,1) “Roof
=FIND(find_text, within_text, is 2
[start_num])
6 REPLACE Text Replaces part of a string with another =REPLACE(“Roofing”,2,2,”xx” Replac
specified string. ) “xx”
 CATEGOR
S/N FUNCTION DESCRIPTION USAGE COM
Y
=REPLACE (old_text, start_num,
num_chars, new_text)

Date Time Functions

These functions are used to manipulate date values. The following table shows some of the
common date functions

S/N FUNCTION CATEGORY DESCRIPTION USAGE

1 DATE Date & Time Returns the number that represents the date in excel code =DATE(2015
2 DAYS Date & Time Find the number of days between two dates =DAYS(D6,C
3 MONTH Date & Time Returns the month from a date value =MONTH(“4
4 MINUTE Date & Time Returns the minutes from a time value =MINUTE(“1
5 YEAR Date & Time Returns the year from a date value =YEAR(“04/

VLOOKUP function
The VLOOKUP function is used to perform a vertical look up in the left most column and
return a value in the same row from a column that you specify. Let’s explain this in a
layman’s language. The home supplies budget has a serial number column that uniquely
identifies each item in the budget. Suppose you have the item serial number, and you would
like to know the item description, you can use the VLOOKUP function. Here is how the
VLOOKUP function would work.

=VLOOKUP (C12, A4:B8, 2, FALSE)

HERE,

 "=VLOOKUP" calls the vertical lookup function

 "C12" specifies the value to be looked up in the left most column
 "A4:B8" specifies the table array with the data
 "2" specifies the column number with the row value to be returned by the VLOOKUP
function
 "FALSE," tells the VLOOKUP function that we are looking for an exact match of the
supplied look up value

The animated image below shows this in action

Summary
Excel allows you to manipulate the data using formulas and/or functions. Functions are
generally more productive compared to writing formulas. Functions are also more accurate
compared to formulas because the margin of making mistakes is very minimum.

Here is a list of important Excel Formula and Function

 SUM function = =SUM(E4:E8)

 MIN function = =MIN(E4:E8)

 MAX function = =MAX(E4:E8)

 AVERAGE function = =AVERAGE(E4:E8)

 COUNT function = =COUNT(E4:E8)

 DAYS function = =DAYS(D4,C4)

 VLOOKUP function = =VLOOKUP (C12, A4:B8, 2, FALSE)

 DATE function = =DATE(2020,2,4)