So ask your "decision makers" to specify unambiguously what they want. If
they can't specify the question, they can't expect you to provide an answer.
--
David Biddulph

"smw2340" wrote in message
...
I agree with your point there, however, the decision makers I am creating
this for do not agree. they want to see the % goal attainment whether it
is
positive or negative. this is why i'm stuck on trying to find a formula i
can imbed that will work.

thank you for your quick response however, i do appreciate the help.
smw

"David Biddulph" wrote:

The advice is that percentages are pretty meaningless in that situation.
If
you make a small adjustment and think about a case where the goal is to
break even; how would you define your percentage there?
In the case you quoted, if you wanted you could look at the difference
between target and actual, and take that as a percentage of the magnitude
of
the target, so ($100 - (-$100))/abs(-$100) would give a 200% improvement,
((-$60) - (-$100))/abs(-$100) would be a 40% improvement, breaking even
would be a 100% improvement, and achieving the target would give a 0%
improvement, but (as I said at the start) I don't think that percentages
are
usually very useful in such situations..
--
David Biddulph

"smw2340" wrote in message
...
I want to write a formula that calculates the percent attainment of a
goal
i.e. profit goal. If i have a goal of $-100 and actually attain $100
(positive) profit. What is the formula to write such that the
resulting %
does not contain a negative? Additionally, would like the same formula
to
take into account if goal is $-100 and actually attain $-60, the %
attainment
should be positive.

any advise?