Formulas help business owners create useful spreadsheets that perform complex calculations automatically. Markup percentages, which show the difference between cost and selling price, are ideal candidates for converting into Microsoft Excel formulas. If your business needs to compute the markup percentage for a product or service, add a simple markup percentage formula to your Excel spreadsheet and let the application compute that percentage in real time as people enter data.
Launch Excel and create a new spreadsheet. You will use this spreadsheet to enter sample data that demonstrates markup percentage formulas.
Type "Cost" in cell A1, "Selling Price" in cell B1 and "Percent Markup" in cell C1 (omit the quotation marks here and throughout). These become your headings.
Type "10" in cell A2 and "12" in cell B2. These become this example's cost and selling price.
Click cell C2 and type the following formula into that cell: =((B2-A2)/A2) * 100 This formula subtracts the cost from the selling price, divides that total by the cost and multiplies the result by 100. The formula tells Excel to compute percentage markup and place it in the Percent Markup column.
Copy the formula by clicking the black square in the lower right corner of cell C2 dragging down. The cells will display #DIV/0! until values are entered.
Test the spreadsheet by typing values for cost and selling price into the Cost and Selling Price columns. As you type, Excel displays the markup percentage in the Percent Markup column.
- The formula also calculates markup percentages correctly when cost exceeds the selling price. This may happen when a business loses money on a sale. Excel displays a negative markup percent value when this happens.
- If you have never experimented with formulas, learn to create even more powerful automated spreadsheet calculations by studying online tutorials that discuss Excel formulas.
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