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Basic Guide to
Excel Formulas
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Basic Guide to Excel Formulas
M ORE IN T H IS SERIES What’s a Formula?
Excel can perform a lot of helpful tasks for you, if you know the
Basic Excel Skills right way to ask. It can do math calculations, do counts from your
Video: Basic Excel Skills: Beginner data, split information into different columns (like first and last
and Intermediate Refresher names), etc. Formulas are the way you tell Excel what you want it to
do.
Guides:
Navigating Excel It All Starts with An Equals Sign (=)
Excel Basic Skills The equals sign (=) is how you get Excel’s attention so it knows you
Excel Intermediate Skills want it to do something. Every formula will start with an equals sign.
You can type the equals sign into the formula bar at the top of the
Building Your Intake spreadsheet or directly into the cell where you want to put the
Spreadsheet formula.
Video & Guide: Building Your
Then you can start telling Excel what it is you want it to do, like add
Intake Spreadsheet
two numbers together:
Drop-down Lists
Video: Using Drop-down Lists for
Easy and Consistent Data Entry
Guide: Drop-down List
Reference Guide
Excel Formulas
Videos:
Intro to Excel Formulas
Basic Excel Formulas for
Reporting
Using Formulas: Beyond
Reporting
Guides:
Basic Guide to Excel Formulas
Formulas for Counting Kids
Using Your Data
Videos:
Displaying Data with Excel
Charts
Next Steps for Using Your Data
Next Steps for Building Data
Capacity
Guide: Displaying Data with
Excel Charts
Mixing It Up with Cells
You probably wouldn’t use Excel to do calculations that simple, of course. Where formulas start to get
useful is when you take information from different cells in your spreadsheet and calculate it. Every cell
has a unique name (called a “cell reference”) that’s made up of the letter of the column and the number
of the row.
Here we want to multiply the number of foster care placements open during January (cell B2) by the
case rate (cell C2) to get our total expenditure for the month. Excel recognizes the asterisk (*) as the
symbol for multiplication, so we put the formula (=B2*C2) into cell D2, where we want the total to
show up.
Crossing the Line (Between Worksheets)
Let’s say that in the previous example, you actually have the rate stored in another worksheet in the
same Excel file. We don’t need to waste time copying it – we can just tell Excel to grab it from the other
sheet and use it for the calculations. All we need to do is tell Excel where it is.
In this example, the case rate is in a worksheet named “Rates” in cell C2. In Excel’s language, we would
write this as “Rates!C2”and write our formula telling Excel to multiple cell B2 in this worksheet with
cell C2 from the Rates worksheet.
=B2*Rates!C2
To fill in the rest of the months, we would change the first cell name for each new row, but keep
“Rates!C2” constant.
Cell Ranges
Excel can also look at a larger range of cells, such as a whole column. Using our example from above,
let’s say you wanted to add up your entire year of foster care expenditures. You can use the SUM
function to add up the range of cells between January (cell C2) and December (cell C13):
=SUM(C2:C13)
Locking It In
As soon as you finish typing your formula, hit “Enter” or “Tab”. This locks in your formula and keeps
Excel from getting confused when you click on another cell. If you do accidentally click somewhere else
before you lock in your formula, just hit Ctrl+Z to undo it.
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