we've already talked about how to create
simple formulas that only have one type
of operation but sometimes you'll have
to create a more complex formula that
has more than one type of operation for
example addition and multiplication to
do this you'll need to understand how
Excel is calculating the answer Excel
uses a set of rules called the order of
operations which you might remember from
math class the order of operations
determines which parts of the formula to
calculate first the very first thing
that you calculate is items and
parentheses then if you have any
exponents you'll calculate those
next is multiplication and division and
lastly addition and subtraction
Excel knows to use the order of
operations whenever it calculates a
complex formula and it's important that
you remember it so that you can create
formulas that will give you the correct
answer
to remember the order you can just use
the acronym PEMDAS or to make it even
easier just remember the phrase please
excuse my dear Aunt Sally
let's go over each of these and a little
more detail
in this formula five plus two is in
parentheses so we'll calculate that
first to get seven and then we can just
multiply three times seven to get 21
this formula contains an exponent 3 ^ 2
and we'll need to calculate that first
before doing the addition
if you have multiplication or division
that will come next here we multiply 2
times 4 to get 8 and 9 minus 8 equals 1
now multiplication and division are
considered to be at the same level and
that means if you have both of them in
your formula they're calculated from
left to right in this example we'll do
the division first and then the
multiplication
if we wanted the multiplication to
happen first we could just put it in
parentheses or we could rearrange the
formula so the multiplication was on the
left
finally we have addition and subtraction
just like multiplication and division
these are on the same level so we
calculate them from left to right
okay now let's put them all together
this formula may look really complicated
but we're just going to go step by step
through the order of operations and
you'll see it's actually not that bad
we'll start with the parentheses we'll
calculate each of these to get two and
three and you can see that the formula
is already starting to look a little bit
simpler next we'll look to see if there
are any exponents in this formula and
there is one two to the second power and
when we calculate it it becomes four
next we'll do the multiplication and
division going from left to right
and now all this left is addition and
that gives us our answer which is eight
point seven five and that's the same
answer that Excel would give you if you
entered in that formula
it's important to keep these rules in
mind when you're creating a formula in
this example I'd like to add these three
values and find out how much the tax
will be and let's say the tax rate is
five point five percent
I'll start by typing the equals sign
which is how you always start a formula
I'll add D four plus d 5 plus D 6 and
then I'll multiply it by point zero five
five which is five point five percent
now is this formula going to give us the
correct result no it's not
multiplication comes before addition so
Excel will first multiply d6 times point
zero five five and then it will add d4
and d5 and that's actually not what we
want we want these three values to be
added first and we can do that by just
putting them in parentheses parentheses
are often the best way of controlling
which parts the formula are calculated
first
and when this formula is calculated the
answer is four dollars and sixty-five
cents
so whenever you're doing a complex
formula you'll need to think about the
order of operations to make sure that
your formulas give you the correct
answer like what you just saw rate it
add a comment subscribe to our chill the
freedom to learn
what you want when you want
absolutely food
GCF learn free.org