It is one of the most practical functions and one that we will use most frequently when we work with spreadsheets: Round in Excel. This operation is very practical when we work with many numerical figures. Rounding off can greatly simplify our daily calculations.
El Rounding It is a well-known calculation that consists of modifying a number or digit until it reaches a certain value. A "round" number, with no decimals. There are several ways to round, up or down, to the number of units, tens, hundreds, etc. In any case, the purpose is always the same: to reduce the number and simplify it so that it can be used more easily.
The truth is that in our day to day we are constantly rounding up, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, if the price of a garment is 17,89 euros, we say that it cost us 18 euros. Simplify to communicate better. The same happens with the numerical values that we use to carry out mathematical or financial operations, both in our domestic accounting and in the professional field.
The rounding of numbers that contain decimals It is the most usual case, although we can also use it to round a figure to any unit we want. In general, there are two ways to run it. We illustrate it with an example: round the number 55, 45 eliminating the decimals.
- Rounding up: 55,45 —> 56
- Round down: 55,45 —> 55
In summary, we can say that rounding a number allows us to obtain a simpler and clearer image of the amounts we handle, while greatly simplifies calculations. On the other hand, by rounding we are losing accuracy. It is not recommended when we need to perform precise calculations. In short, the convenience of rounding or not will depend on the use that we are going to give to the figures. It is not recommended, for example, if we are calculating the taxes to be paid.
Round function in Excel
to round in Excel there is a specific function whose name is precisely that: ROUND. Next we will explain what to do to use it correctly.
The first thing to know is that, to begin with, it is necessary to specify two arguments: the number that we have and the decimal places that we want that same number to have. We will find the function inside the Mathematics and trigonometric category. The syntax to apply is the following
= ROUND (number; num_decimal places)
- The argument "number" is the original number to which we want to apply rounding.
- The argument "num_decimals" It is used to specify the number of decimal places to which we want to round the original number. *
(*) In Excel, negative numbers are always rounded to the left of the decimal point, while zero is rounded to the nearest whole number.
ROUND in Excel, step by step
Next we explain how to round in Excel step by step, illustrating the process with an example, which is always easier to understand everything.
Let's imagine that 5.000 apples have been collected on a farm and it is necessary to load them into boxes whose maximum capacity is 30 pieces of fruit each. How many boxes are we going to need? If we perform a simple division (5.000 divided by 30) it gives us a result with decimals: 166,666 boxes.
As is logical, in practice we are only going to have 166 boxes and we will have a few apples left over, or 167 boxes and one of them will not be completely filled. Touch round. This is how we are going to do it:
- We select the cell in which we want to apply the function and write =ROUND.
- Then, between parentheses, we indicate the reference cell and, separated by a semicolon, the number of decimal places we want, which in this case is zero, since we are looking for an integer*. For example: =ROUND(A1).
The result that we will get in this specific example is that we are going to need 167 boxes to collect all the apples.
(*) If we need to round to the first decimal, the figure that we would have to enter is 1; to round to the second decimal, 2. And so on. On the other hand, to round to the nearest multiple of 10, the value to enter would be -1, to the multiple of 100, -2; to the multiple of 1.000 -3, etc.
Specific functions for rounding in Excel
Beyond the basic function of ROUNDING, the way of use of which we have explained in the previous section, in Excel there are other variants to calculate rounding in a more specific or conditional way. This is the list of options:
- ROUNDUP: Rounds the number up (for example, from 9,5 to 10).
- ROUND.DOWN: Rounds the number down (for example, from 9,5 to 9).
- INTEGER: Rounds down to the nearest whole number.
- ROUND MULT: Rounds a number to a specified multiple.
- MULTIPLE.UPPER: Applies rounding up, up to the nearest multiple.
- MULTIPLE.LOWER: Applies rounding down to the nearest multiple.
- TRUNCATE: Simply removes the decimal part of a number.
- ROUND.EVEN: This function rounds a number up to the next even integer.
- ROUND.ODD: Does the same thing, but up to the next odd integer.