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Excel IFERROR Practice Question: Find the growth (this year minus last year, divided by last year). Show New…

By Rinkesh Shah, founder of Cellgrids.

The question

Find the growth (this year minus last year, divided by last year). Show New when last year is 0. Put it in C2 to C4.

The data

	A	B	C
1	Last year	This year	Growth
2	100	120	?
3	0	50	?
4	80	60	?

The yellow cells are where your answer goes.

Show answer

Expected results:

C2 = 0.2
C3 = New
C4 = -0.25

How it works

Explanation: Dividing by last year's 0 is an error, which means there is nothing to compare with, so IFERROR shows New.
Syntax: =IFERROR((B2-A2)/A2,"New")
(120-100)/100 gives 0.2. Last year is 0, so New. (60-80)/80 gives -0.25.

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IFERROR syntax

=IFERROR(value, value_if_error)

Runs a formula, but shows a fallback value instead of an error if it fails. IFERROR is used to build decision rules directly into a spreadsheet instead of manually judging each row. Full IFERROR guide.