Learn how to perform a Simple Calculation.
Creating a Simple Formula
Creating a simple formula is just that - simple - if you follow a few basic steps.
In this blank worksheet, we’ll add 2 plus 2 – by typing an equal sign (to tell Excel I’m about to create a formula), and then literally typing 2, the plus sign, which is known as the operator, and then another 2. When I press Enter, Excel calculates the result – 4. No surprise there, right?
Now, using that process again, on the Department Employees tab, we have a list of employees and their salaries and other info - and I'll show you how to calculate a bonus for each person, and then we'll calculate their gross income, which is their salary plus the bonus.
First, for the first employee, in the Bonus column, I'll click in the cell where I want the formula - and its result - to appear.
As I showed you a few moments ago, we need to start with an equal sign, to tell Excel that I want it to perform a calculation for me. This is how Excel knows you’re not just typing random numbers and that any cells you click in are part of a formula.
The first thing I want in this formula is the current salary for this first employee, so I'll click in that cell. Notice Excel inserts the address of the cell I've clicked in.
Next, I need to tell Excel the operation I need it to perform, so I'll type an asterisk, the operator for multiplication.
Now I'm going to type the percentage for the bonus, which is 5%, so I type .05. Then all I have to do is press Enter to complete the formula. We have the first bonus calculated!
Let's repeat that so you can see the steps again - click in the cell, type the equal sign, click on the cell I want to use in the formula, type the operator, and then type the multiplier to calculate the bonus. Then, press Enter.
Pretty easy, right? But boring to repeat for every person in the department, so I’m going to use the Fill handle, the tiny black box in the lower right of the cell, to copy this formula down the column, repeating it for each of the employees. Notice the tiny plus sign at my mouse pointer – when I see that, I know I can drag and Excel will take whatever’s in the active cell and fill it into all the cells I drag through.
In this case, it’s the formula for the last bonus I calculated, in cell G5.
Notice that I now have a bonus calculated for each person. If I go back and click on one of the formulas, you can see that Excel successfully selected the current salary for the person in this row (George Myers, in row 10), and multiplied that by the .05 that I built into the original formula.
Now, I want to calculate each employees’ new net income, so I’m going to add the current salary and the bonus for each person and place the results in column H. I’ll only have to do it once, because using the Fill handle will allow me to repeat it for everyone in the list.
So – clicking in cell H4, I type the equal sign, then I click on that person’s Salary, type the plus sign, and then click on their bonus. Pressing Enter adds the contents of those two cells together and we have the total income.
Now I grab the Fill handle in the lower right corner of cell H4, and drag down the column. When I release the mouse, Excel has calculated the total income for all of the employees in the department. But I only had to do it once!