Making numbers look like money

You already know to type 450, not ₦450, if you want the grid to add. The page still looks naked. Offices like a sign and two decimals. Formatting is a costume on a number that is still a number. This lesson is selecting the amount column, choosing currency or a custom naira, and not painting the header as money so the word Amount becomes a joke in the total.

Click the header of the amount column, or select the cells that hold amounts — not the word Amount, not the names. In Excel: Home, the Number box, Currency, or More number formats. If ₦ is in the list, pick it. If not, pick a symbol you can stand, or type NGN in the header and keep the cells as numbers with two decimals. Sheets: Format, Number, Custom currency. Two decimal places is ordinary. 1500 becomes 1,500.00. The comma is the costume. The 1500 is still 1500.

When the costume fights the sum

If you typed ₦1500 as text in some cells and formatted others, SUM will skip the text. The total looks too small. Delete the sign from the cell, type the digits, format the column. If a cell shows ###### after currency, the column is too thin for the extra characters — next lesson but one, widen it. That is not a lost amount. It is a curtain.

Accounting format in Excel adds a dash for zero and hangs the sign on the left. It looks like a bank. It is optional. Do not mix Accounting, Currency, and plain in one column. Pick one costume. The total cell should wear the same clothes as the column, or it looks like a different kind of number. Click the total, format it the same way.

• Type three amounts as plain digits. SUM them. Note the total.
• Select the amounts and the total. Apply currency or two decimals. Confirm the total did not change in meaning.
• Click a dressed cell. Look at the formula bar. You should see digits, not a picture.
• Do not format the Name column as money. If you did, Undo, or set it back to General or Text.

NGN, and what a form wants

A government form that wants 1500.00 in a box may reject ₦. Paste digits. A letter to a person may want ₦1,500 — that is Word, Insert symbol, not a spreadsheet cell. Two rooms, two costumes. In the grid, the number is the worker. The sign is a hat. Put the hat on after the worker is in place. Then the total still moves when Friday's figure changes, which was the whole point of the grid.