I am attempting to use Goal Seek for the first time today and I'm not sure what I am doing incorrectly.  I'm including a screen shot of my setup.  I am attempting to change the highlighted box of $15.51 to zero by changing "g"

I have included the "answer key" of doing this by hand, which should change my growth rate to 5.90015% using the Goal Seek. However, I'm getting -70,000+%

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Here is my original data:

Sales₀(S₀)                                 325

Growth rate (g)                           21.54%

Change in Sales                         70

Sales₁    (S₁)                              395

Total assets (A₀)                         122.5

Spontaneous Liabilities    (L₀)      17.5

Net income                                9.8

Profit Margin (PM)                      3.00%

Payout Ratio (POR)                    40.00%

My first calculation is to find AFN (for those familiar with financial forecasting)

A₀/S₀*(S₁-S₀)  = $26.38

L₀/S₀*(S₁-S₀) = $3.77

PM*S₁*(1-POR) = 7.11

= AFN of $15.51

My next step is to change AFN to zero while changing "growth".  However, when I use Goal Seek, I'm getting a number that is completely off .   The correct answer is 5.90015%   (my answer is -7227603.11%)

Can anyone help?

can you try with Solved Add-in without putting any constrains and see if you are getting the same wrong result.

perhaps if you could upload a sample copy of your workbook, then it would be very easy to solve.

• Edited by Jamil MohammadMVP 23 hours 41 minutes ago