[SOLVED] Google Sheets - Formula to find difference between two values and recognize if the number difference is positive or negative

[Knova3]

Hope my blabbering will make sense to someone.

I'm trying to create a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to record profits and losses.

I've used the =ABS(A1-A2) formula to get the differences in between two cells values, but I've noticed that it doesn't recognize negative number differences.

For Example: Cell A1 is $10.00, and cell A2 is $7.50. The difference in that is -$2.50. It does that, but it marks it as '$2.50', not '-$2.50'.

Does anyone know a formula or a way for Google Sheets to recognise whether the value in Cell A2 is lower or higher than the cell in A1, so it will mark it as '-$2.50' instead of '$2.50'?

Any help would be appreciated, have been trying to work this out for an hour!

 

[USAFRet]

ABS is the absolute value. It has no Positive or Negative.

In your example, A1-A2 = $2.50
A2-A1 = -$2.50

So why not just =(A1-A2) ?

If A2 is larger, the result will be Negative.