formula help - analyzing sales

[mr z]

hello all,
my boss has just asked me to create a spreadsheet which analyzes th
days’ sales with the corresponding day last year - i confidentl
answered "sure, no worries" and sat down in front of the computer an
loaded excel.... it was at this point i realized that i had no ide
what i was doing.
basically i have two sets of figures and need to create a formul
showing (as a percent %) the growth or decline in sales eg:

"2003" "2004" "+/-"
$10000 $12000 +20%
$12000 $10000 -20%

its important to show the result as a “+” or ”-“ to represent
increase or decrease in sales. I’m sure this is an easy thing to do
but being a novice on excel and not mathematically gifted I woul
really appreciate some advice asap.

Thanks for your time

 

[JE McGimpsey]

One way:

C2: =IF(A2<>0,B2/A2-1,"N/A")

Format C2 as a percentage:

Format/Cells/Number/Custom +0%;-0%;0%;@

and copy down as far as necessary.