This document provides step-by-step directions for completing an Excel exercise to calculate monthly expenses and percentages of total expenses. The directions guide the user to enter expense data for three months, calculate totals for each expense and month, calculate overall monthly and average expenses, and use formulas to determine the percentage each expense is of the total expenses. Formatting is also applied, such as merging and centering cells, wrapping and aligning text, adjusting row heights and column widths.
This document provides step-by-step directions for completing an Excel exercise to calculate monthly expenses and percentages of total expenses. The directions guide the user to enter expense data for three months, calculate totals for each expense and month, calculate overall monthly and average expenses, and use formulas to determine the percentage each expense is of the total expenses. Formatting is also applied, such as merging and centering cells, wrapping and aligning text, adjusting row heights and column widths.
Step 1 Click on A1 and then click on the text in the Formula bar to type in your name and press Enter. Step 2 Select A1 to F1, merge these cells together using the Merge and Center button in the Alignment group under the Home tab. Step 3 With A1 still as the Active Cell, change the font and/or the font size to something bigger. Increase the "white space" around the title by increasing the height of row 1 a bit by either dragging the border between the labels for row Step 4 1 and 2. The height will be shown in the tool tip in both POINTS and PIXELS. An alternate method is to right-click on the row 1 label and choose Row Height. In this case the height will only be shown in POINTS. The exact amount is unimportant. Step 5 In B2 type January Step 6 With the Active Cell still B2, drag the Fill Series handle to cells to the right to automatically type February and March Step 7 Click on F2 to make it the Active Cell. The Home tab should still be visible so in the Alignment group click on the Wrap Text button. Also in the Alignment group, click the Bottom Align button in the top row of buttons in the group. (If you hover over the buttons the tool tip Step 8 will pop up and tell you which button is which.) Step 9 Make the same formatting choices for both E2 and A16. Increase the width of column A enough to see the full expense category labels in A3 to A14 by any of these methods: dragging the Step 10 border between the labels for column A and B to the right OR right-click on the column A label and choose Column Width OR you can automatically size a column (or row) by double-clicking the right (or bottom) border. Step 11 In cell E3 type in the formula: =SUM(B3:D3) and press enter Step 12 Click on E3 again to make it the Active Cell and then use the Fill Series handle to drag down to E12 Step 13 In B14 type the formula: =SUM(B3:B12) and press enter Step 14 Click on B14 again to make it the Active Cell and then drag the Fill Series handle to the right to column E Step 15 In B16 type the formula: =AVERAGE(B14:D14) and press enter Step 16 In F3 type the formula: =E3/E14 and press enter Click on F3 again and then in the Number group under the Home tab click on the Percentage button and then the Increase Decimal Step 17 button so the cell is formatted to show numbers to one tenth of a percent. Step 18 With the Active Cell still F3, drag the Fill Series handle down to row 12. You know see a series of error messages of #DIV/0 which means division by zero. The problem is the fill series handle adjusted the Step 19 divisor down to blank cells so we have to tell it to use the same divisor all the time. Click on F3 again and edit the formula to read: =E3/$E$14 and press enter. The dollar sign is used in Excel formulas to refer to Step 20 ABSOLUTE ADDRESSES meaning those cell references in a formula will not change when the Fill Series handle is used or a cell is copied to another location Step 21 Now, click on F3 again and drag the fill series handle down to row 12. Step 22 Save this file on your USB drive using the file name of ExcelExercise1_YourName.xls Step 23 Go into the Excel folder in the Assignment section of Blackboard and turn in this file.