The MROUND function in Google Sheets rounds a number to the nearest multiple of a specified factor. This rounding can be helpful in various scenarios, such as rounding prices to the nearest nickel or rounding time to the nearest half-hour.
Rounding occurs when the remainder from dividing the value by factor is greater than or equal to half the value of the factor. If the value is already an exact multiple, no rounding occurs, and Google Sheets returns the original value.
Contents
Syntax
=MROUND(value, factor)
value – The number for the function to round
factor – The multiple to round with
Similar Functions
Several functions deal with rounding. Choose the most appropriate for your use.
- CEILING – Rounds a number up to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance
- INT – Rounds a number down to the nearest integer
- FLOOR – Rounds a number down to the nearest integer multiple of specified significance
- MROUND – Rounds one number to the nearest integer multiple of another
- ROUND – Round 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
Insert Math Symbols (Add-On)
Possible Errors
#NUM! – The value and the factor are different signs. Make both positive or negative.
Examples
You can use MROUND in many different ways. Let’s take a look at a few, starting with rounding currency.
Example 1 – Round to the Nearest Nickel
Sometimes it looks better to present a price rounded to the nearest nickel. Let’s look at how to do that.
The formula used in cell C2: =MROUND(A2,B2)
We use the MROUND function to divide the Original Price by the factor of $0.05. Since the function uses standard rounding (instead of rounding up or down), it rounds $1.21 down to $1.20 in row 2 and rounds $1.23 up to $1.25 in row 3. Google Sheets does not round the last value in column A because it is already a multiple of $0.05.
Example 2 – Round 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 to the closest half-hour.
⚠️ 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 3 both round to 1:30 following the standard rounding rules of rounding to the nearest value. As 1:45 PM is halfway between 1:30 PM and 2:00 PM, the MROUND function rounds it up to 2:00 PM.
Example 3 – Round With Different Factors
Up to this point, we have been changing the value. Now let’s look at changing the factor. We’ll use positive and negative factors to see the differences.
You can see that negatives and positives move towards the same absolute values. Each output in column C is the opposite sign when the inputs flip their signs.
Live Example in Sheets
Make a copy of this spreadsheet to get the examples in your own Google Sheet.