if B1-B5 are EXCL and B6-B10 are not is there a way to show that. I
tried the formula putting B1:B5 but it did not work - can you tell me
what I am doing wrong? This is how I entered the formula:

=IF(B1:B5="EXCL",A1:A5*-1,0)

Maybe this would help:
=IF(AND(
COUNTIF(B1:B5,"EXCL")=5,
COUNTIF(B6:B10,"EXCL")=0), A5*-1, 0)