Get percent change

Generic formula
=(new_value-old_value)/old_value
Explanation
If you need to calculate the percentage change between two values in Excel, you can use a formula that
divides the change itself by the "old" value. A classic example would be to calculate the percentage
between sales last month and sales this month.
How the formula works
In the example, the active cell contains this formula:
=(D6-C6)/C6
In this case, Excel first calculates the difference between the values (the actually change in sales) then
divides that result by the original, or "old" value to get the decimal value -0.3435:
=(49500-75400)/75400
=-25900/75400
=-0.3435
Because cell E6 is formatted using the Percentage number format (with no decimals), Excel displays the
final result as -34%

Calculate percent variance

Generic formula
=(new-original)/original

Explanation
If you need to calculate percent variance you can use a simple formula that
divides the difference between new number and the original number by the
original number.
This formula can be used to calculate things like variance between this year
and last year, variance between a budgeted amount with an actual amount,
and so on.

How this formula works

The concept of variance requires a baseline value and a "new" value. Once you
calculate the difference between the two numbers, you only need to divide by
the original value.
In the example, we are calculating a variance from forecast, so we need
subtract the fForecast in column C from the Actual in column D, then divide

that by the original number in Column C. The result in column E must be

formatted using the Percentage number format.
In cell E5, the formula is:

=(D6-C6)/C6

In the example, the difference between actual and forecast is 34,000, so the
formula reduces to:
=(359000-325000)/325000
=34000/325000
=0.1046
=10%

When you format this result using the Percentage number format, Excel will
automatically display the decimal result as a percentage, there is no need to
multiply by 100.

Negative numbers
If have a negative value for the original number, the above formula won't work
and needs to be adjusted by adding the ABS function:
=(new-original)/ABS(original)

ABS makes negative numbers positive and in this case ensures the original
value is positive when the variance is calculated.

Percent of goal

Generic formula
=actual/goal

Explanation
If you need to calculate percent of goal, you can do so with a simple formula
that divides the actual by the goal amount, with the result formatted using the
percentage number format.
This same formula can be used to calculate things like percent of target,
percent of budget, percent of forecast, and so on.

In the example, we are calculating percent of Forecast, so we simply need to

divide the actual result in column D with the Forecast in column C and format
the result in column E as using the Percentage number format.
In cell E5, the formula is:
=D5/C5

How this formula works

When working manually, percentage results are calculated by dividing one
number by another (for example, a part by a whole) to get a decimal value,
then multiplying by 100 to express as a percentage.
Excel can display decimal or fractional values automatically as a percentage by
applying the Percentage number format, so there is no need to multiply by
100.

Negative goal
If you have a negative goal, the formula above won't calculate correctly. In this
case, you can calculate the variance as explained here, then add the variance
to 100% to get the percent of goal:
=(actual-goal)/ABS(goal)+100%