Now that you know the difference between these two number formats, take the time to learn some essential Excel functions for budgeting, so that your spreadsheet both looks the part and helps you ...

Excel provides two options for calculating the difference between two times. If you use a simple subtraction operation such as "=C1-A1," select the custom format "h:mm" from the Format Cells options.

To find the percentage difference between two sets of data in Excel, you can use the aforementioned guide. In other words, it is possible to calculate it by using a formula like this: =(B2/A2)-1 .