IRR on Microsoft Excel. We will use the same example we used above. Open Excel and enter -100 (that is negative 100) in cell A1, 0 (that is zero) in A2 and 132.25 in A3.

Excel will default to a 10% IRR guess if one is not provided. Doing this for both projects, we calculate that the facility expansion would have an internal rate of return of 14.5%, ...

In Excel, you can use the program's XIRR function to solve for "r" -- the IRR -- for each project. The XIRR function first asks for the dates, followed by the cash flows, and then a guess at the ...