Customizing Currency Entries
Overview
Most currencies that are convertible – the US dollar ($), the British pound (£) – are readily recognized as numeric entries in spreadsheet. Those that are not convertible are, by inspection, recognized as text entries – they are left-aligned in the cell.
To use non-convertible currencies for calculations, Excel should recognize your currency entry as numeric entry. By default, the currency entry should be right-aligned.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Customize a currency entry.
- Enter a customized currency as a numeric entry.
Customizing the Ghana Cedi
To customize the Ghana Cedi (¢) as a numeric entry, let’s do the following task:
1. Select cell B1
2. Press and hold the alt key down, then type 155 (alt +155) to insert the cedi symbol.
3. Type 100
4. Press Enter
Note that the entry ¢100 is left-aligned. This suggests Excel recognizes your entry as text.
Try to multiply 2 by cell B1 by doing the following:
1. Select C1
2. Type =
3. Type 2
4. Type * – asterisk (*) is the multiplication symbol in Excel
5. Click cell B1
6. Press Enter
The value #VALUE! shows in the cell C1. This suggests that a value (text) used in the computation is a wrong data type.
Now, let’s focus on customizing the cedi symbol so that it can be recognized as numeric currency entry.
There are two ways you may adopt to introduce currencies to your entry. You may choose to do all data entries and calculations, before applying currency symbols. Or, you customize all the cells prior to data entry and calculations , after which you do the entries and calculations.
To understand how to access number format codes, watch the animation: in figure 1:
To customise the cedi as a numeric currency, do the following tasks:
1. Select D1
2. Go to the Number group in the Home tab.
3. Click the dialog box launcher (figure 2).
4. Move the mouse down to Custom option under the Number tab (figure 3).
5. Click Custom.
6. Scroll down the Type field
7. Click #,##0.00 format. This suggests that we’ll be customizing currencies with thousand separators, e.g., $2,500.00. The format #,##0.00 now moves into the text below the Type field.
8. Place the insertion beam (mouse pointer) just before #,##0.00 and insert ¢ (alt plus 155). You now have ¢#,##0.00 in the text box.
9. Click OK.
Remember D1 is the empty cell that you’ve just formatted with the Cedi currency (¢) symbol.
10. Type 200 in cell D1.
11. Press Enter.
12. You’ll notice ¢200.00 as the new value formatted with Ghana cedi symbol. The entry is also right-aligned. This confirms the entry as a numeric entry that can be used for any future calculations.
13. That’s it.
Note
Exercise 1.4
1. Start MS Excel.
2. Type SALARY in the default active cell (A1).
3. Press the Enter key. Your active cell now moves down to cell A2.
4. Enter 500.50 in A2 – meaning type 500.50 and press Enter.
5. Enter 4000.56 in cell A3.
6. Enter 8 more meaningful salaries from cell A4 to cell cell A12.
7. Select the range A2 to A12. You can do this easily by clicking cell A2, press and hold down the mouse, drag the mouse pointer to cell A12, and then release the mouse.
8. Use the skills acquired in this lesson to format all salaries with Ghana Cedi currency.
9. Save your task – use your username as the file name, See Note below.
10. Submit screenshot of your work to the instructor for this course via adam@iug.edu.gh
Note
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1 Comment
Wow such a nice topic .