Google sheets provide you with every feature that can ease the analysis of data and can save your time too. Sometimes you want to make large data understandable by presenting it in percentage form. Google sheets provides a function to calculate the same too. Let’s see how.
But first of all, if you have data that’s already in percent form but the symbol isn’t attached to it, you can add so by –
- Selecting the range of cells that needs to input percent symbol.
- Then, clicking on percentage symbol from the toolbar.
Calculating percentage of total
Let’s understand this with an example
A | B | C | |
1. | Brand | Sales | Percentage sales |
2. | UCB | 790 | 30.30% |
3. | Zara | 45 | 1.75% |
4. | Total revenue |
Now, as we all know that formula for percental will be
Sales revenue of brand/total revenue * 100
- Thus, first step would be to calculate total revenue sales of all brands. And this sum can be done by using a formula – =SUM(B2:B3)
- Next, to calculate percentage sales we need to put above-mentioned formula as =B2/$B$4 where sales are divided by total revenue.
- Paste this formula in the rows that you want this calculation to be in.
- Now, highlight all these cells and select percent symbol from toolbar.
- And here you have calculated the percent sales that each brand is contributing to total revenue of a store.
Calculating percentage change
When you need to compare your data by keeping a track of increase or decrease over a time, this this the feature you should go for.
A | B | C | D | |
1 | Brand | 1st month sale | 2nd month sale | Percentage change |
2 | UCB | 789.46 | 896.42 | =(C2-B2)/B2 |
3 | Zara | 45.64 | 57.98 | |
4 | Zink London | 801.92 | 672.81 |
Now, as we all know that formula for percental change will be –
2nd month sale – 1st month sale/ 1st month sale * 100
To perform this, follow the steps-
- In the first cell where percentage change should be calculated, enter the formula
=(C2-B2)/B2
- Now press enter and copy paste forma to every row.
- Now, highlight all these cells and select percent symbol from toolbar.
- And here your percentage increase or decrease will be calculated.
Performing calculations and analysing data in a spreadsheet is a skill that one must know. And here learning to calculate percentages is a one step towards it.