Don’t be embarrassed by somebody spotting that your figures do not add up
Your boss has asked you to complete a cost budget for next year for your departments. There are five areas to consider:
You know that these annual totals should be spread evenly between the months in the year, so you create a spread sheet with the per annum figures divided by 12
The problem is that the individual months don’t add up. This is the correct version below (in blue):
Believe me when I say that there is always somebody that will blurt out in the budget meeting that your figures do not add up. I have seen accountants caught out this way; don’t let this happen to you. By using rounding in your formula you will end up with a table that does add up. Guaranteed.
Solution:
(Also see Video below) You see, formatting a number is not change the number, it only changes the look of the number, so if you are going to do things like forecasting, or budgeting, you will need to actually round the numbers properly.
To do a round function you need to put in the formula =round (this is where you put him with what you want rounded, you either put 2 if you’re trying to 2 pennies, or cents, or 0 if you want whole round numbers). The video below will show you in detail how it’s done.
