Absolute relative references

Hi Amiera, thanks for the query. Cell references in Excel formula are either absolute or relative. Cell referencing is "relative" by default, which means you can use autofill to populate cells with a formula, and the references in the formula will adjust according to the position of the formula - say, to cells in the next row down.

You set an "absolute" reference to a cell in a formula, when you want Excel to always use that particular value in the formula, regardless of where the formula is moved to. We used this when feeding in the % rate into our sales commission IF formula. We used autofill to populate the commission column row by row, but used an absolute reference to the 10% value in the % rate cell so this value was always fed into the formula.

You can turn a cell reference into an absolute reference in a formula by selecting the cell reference in the formula and then pressing F4. You should see those $ signs go in!

Hope this helps,

Anthony