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I have a simple Google spreadsheet that Takes the estimated cost for a service provided and compares it to the actual cost of the service. the equation I have in the Q column is =K4-P4. When the estimated cost (column K) is less than the Actual cost (column P) I need a positive number in Column Q. And I need the reverse of that if K is greater than p. I'm new to spreadsheets and would appreciate any help.
=ARRAYFORMULA(IF(LEN(K4:K&P4:P), IF(K4:K-P4:P<0, P4:P-K4:K, K4:K-P4:P), ))
If you want to always get a positive value you need to use the absolute value function. In the simplest case you just use =abs(value). But that value can be a number, a cell reference or even a formula.
The absolute value function will always return a positive value. In your case just wrap the =K4-P4 with the ABS() function which would be =ABS(K4-P4)
