Harmoni's default rounding option is School rounding, which is the most widely known form of rounding. If preferred, Bankers rounding is also available to set as a default.
In this article
1. School Rounding (Away from Zero)
School Rounding is the default rounding option available in Harmoni. Using School Rounding, midpoint values (0.5) are rounded to the next number away from zero. This is the most widely known form of rounding.
Example:
- 7.5 rounds up to 8 (because 8 is further away from zero)
- 6.5 rounds up to 7 (because 7 is further away from zero)
- -7.5 rounds down to -8 (because -8 is further away from zero)
Rounding applies to the full number based on the number of decimal places selected. If the source number is 12 decimal places, then rounding will be applied to the full 12 decimals, even if Harmoni displays fewer decimal places. For example, Harmoni may display 13.5, which would round to 14, but if the source number is 13.499999, then the number rounds to 13 because 0.49999 is not the exact midpoint.
2. Bankers Rounding (To the Nearest Even)
Bankers Rounding is an algorithm for rounding quantities to integers (whole numbers), in which numbers that are equidistant from the two nearest integers are rounded to the nearest even integer.
We round 0.5 to the nearest even digit.
Example:
- 7.5 rounds up to 8 (because 8 is an even number)
- but 6.5 rounds down to 6 (because 6 is an even number)
Bankers rounding is unbiased. Over the course of many roundings, all the .5's will round equally up and down. This gives a better estimation of actual unrounded results. For example, the sum of the rounded values will be close to the sum of the unrounded values.
Other common rounding methods such as rounding-up in Excel will, over a large number of rounded values, bias away from the unrounded total.
Bankers rounding (or Round half-to-even) is the default rounding mode used in IEEE 754 computing functions and operators and is considered the standard in financial and statistical operations.
The type of rounding is applied at site level, so ensure all users prefer Bankers Rounding before requesting changes to the default setting.
3. Rounding on Export
- When exporting to Excel, Harmoni exports numbers with the same number of decimal points as shown in Harmoni.
- When exporting to PowerPoint graphs, Harmoni plots the full number but displays the rounded number.
- For example, in a graph, we plot 2.61 and 2.65, so the 2.61 appears lower, but they both show 2.6.
- When exporting to PowerPoint tables, Harmoni exports numbers with the same number of decimal points as shown in Harmoni.
Learn more about exporting Stories to Excel and PowerPoint
Where to from here?
Learn more about Exporting from Harmoni:
- Direct export to Excel and PowerPoint
- Export Stories to Excel and PowerPoint
- PowerPoint Template and Export