Kindly explain the above subjects

Dear Richard

Goal Seeker and Solver are both know as What IF features that allow the management to make appropriate decisions.

A typical example of Goal Seek is if you were self employed and had taken a loan for a specific period at a specific annual rate of interest.

You would use the PMT function to calculate the monthly payments.

Once you have calculated the monthly payments and you predicted that for a set amount of period you can pay more or less than the calculated monthly payments you can use the goal seek to either calculate how much Loan you will be offered or how many months you can pay off the loan in.

If you need an example of goal seek please let me know by replying to this post and I should be able to attach it for you (both goal seek as well as solver!!)

Solver is also for analyzing What If situations!!


A typical example where you could use Solver would be when you currently have a 20 % overall profit but you want to set your profit to 30 % in the next year. You may want to find out how much your sales figure might have to be in order to achieve this target.

By using the Solver you tell Excel to provide you such changes in the Sales in order to achieve this result.

Another benefit you have in solver compared to using Goal Seek feature is that you can Cap (set limits) to some variables. for example, you might want to say that my marketing costs shouldn't be less than £2500 and also not greater than £7500. Excel will ensure that when coming up with the new figures it keeps within the range for the variable that you have capped (set limits to)!!

NB: If the Solver isn't installed then you might have to install it by choosing Tools> Add Ins... Then by putting a tick in the Solver and then Click OK.

After you have installed Solver. In order to access Solver you choose Tools > Solver... Click on the cell you want to set as the target cell.

In the equal to section choose Min, Max or the Value of and type the amount you want to achieve.

In the by changes cells section: Either select the cells that you'd like Excel to change or you can simply click the guess button. When you click on the Guess button Excel automatically selects all the cells that do not have formulae and functions.

Once you have chosen your desired cells. You can cap (set limits to specific cells/range of cells by pressing the Add button and then choosing =, >= or <= and provide your limits.

I hope this helps!! Please mark the post as resolved if it has helped in answering your query.

Kindest Regards

Rajeev Rawat
MOS Master Instructor 2000/2003