The CEILING.PRECISE function in Google Sheets rounds a number up to the nearest integer multiple of a specified significance. This function rounds negative numbers toward zero.
CEILING.MATH, along with CEILING.PRECISE, supplant the CEILING function.
Contents
Syntax
=CEILING.PRECISE(number, [significance])
number – The number for the function to round
significance – Optional. The multiple to round up to. The default value is 1.
Similar Functions
Several functions deal with rounding. Choose the most appropriate for your use.
- CEILING.MATH – Rounds a number up to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance with custom negative number treatment
- CEILING.PRECISE – Rounds a number up to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance
- INT – Rounds a number down to the nearest integer
- FLOOR.MATH – Rounds a number down to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance with custom negative number treatment
- FLOOR.PRECISE – Rounds a number down to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance
- MROUND – Rounds a number to the nearest multiple of another number
- ROUND – Rounds a number to a specified number of decimal places using standard rounding
- ROUNDDOWN – Round a number down to a specified number of places
- ROUNDUP – Round a number up to a specified number of places
- TRUNC: Truncates a number to a certain number of significant digits by omitting less significant digits
Possible Errors
#VALUE! – An argument is non-numeric.
Insert Math Symbols (Add-On)
Examples
You can use CEILING.PRECISE in many different ways. Let’s take a look at a few, starting with rounding currency.
Example 1 – Round Up to the Next Nickel
Sometimes, presenting a price rounded up to the next nickel looks better. Let’s look at how to do that.
The formula used in cell C2: =CEILING.PRECISE(A2,B2)
We use the CEILING.PRECISE function to round the Original Price to a significance of $0.05. Google Sheets does not round the value in row 3 because $1.25 is already a multiple of $0.05. Since the function rounds up, it rounds $1.23 to $1.25 in row 2 and rounds $1.27 up to $1.30 in row 4.
Example 2 – Round Up to the Nearest Half-Hour
Next, let’s round some time values. It is common to refer to a time as a rounded value. In this example, we’ll round values up to the next half-hour.
The formula used in cell C2: =CEILING.PRECISE(A2,B2)
⚠️ You can enter a half hour as “0:30” or “0:30:00“. Either way, you’ll need to use custom formatting to remove the seconds, like in the example above in column B.
Rows 2 and 4 both get rounded up to the next half hour. Since 1:30 PM is already a multiple of 30 minutes, the CEILING.PRECISE function does not change it.
Example 3 – Round With Different Significance
Up to this point, we have been changing the number. Now, let’s look at changing the significance. We’ll use positive and negative significances to see the difference.
You can see that positives move away from zero while the negatives move toward zero. If you want negative numbers to move away from zero, consider using the CEILING.MATH function.
Live Example in Sheets
Make a copy of this spreadsheet to get the examples in your Google Drive.