A thermometer chart is a kind of progress chart that shows the current completed percentage of the task or the value of any metric relative to the predefined value. E.g., the thermometer scale can display the sales plan status or client satisfaction rate.

Span chart, also known as a range bar graph (range column graph), floating bar graph, difference graph, high-low graph, used to display the specific variable value range. Span charts are ideal for comparing ranges, and typically, each variable represents a particular category. All values for the selected category fall between minimal and maximal values that correspond to lower and upper bounds of the interval.

Span chart, also known as a range graph, floating graph, difference graph, high-low graph, shows dataset ranges between a minimum value and a maximum value:

When you work with some statistical data such as lifespan, weight, or height of the specific type of pets, you have different charts and diagrams to compare them. The box and whisker chart is one of the useful graphical representation of statistical data that that shows the median, quartiles, and extreme values at one plot.

A bullet graph (the name by its creator Stephen Few) or bullet chart (in Microsoft office) is designed to demonstrate the difference between the target value and the actual one. Sometimes there are ranges of performance enabled beside the current value bar – they show something like "low", "medium" and "high" or "poor", "satisfactory", "good" and "excellent" value ranges:

A bullet graph (the name by its inventor Stephen Few) or bullet chart (in Microsoft office) generally is used to display progress towards the specific target:

Let's suppose you have three different business plans that were presented to receive startup business loans with the repayment term of one year. They all look well crafted, with realistic and robust goals for the rapid development of their business. A decision that you need to make is which of the submitted projects will receive approval for the startup loans. There are several ways to compare different business plans, and each of them has its advantages.

If you start a new business, create a new product, or change a business model, break-even analysis lets you find out at what stage your company, product, or service will become profitable. Break-even point is the stage where you have no profit yet but have no loss already. However, there are many preceding and following stages important for the investor. The investor wants to know not only how quickly the initial investments will pay off, and extra income will be received, but also how quickly the normal profit and the economic profit will be earned.

A revenue the company generates from selling the products or providing the services should cover the fixed costs, variable costs, and leave a contribution margin. The point where the total operating margin (the difference between the price of the product or service and the variable costs per item or customer) covers the fixed costs is called a break-even point.

Manual data entry into spreadsheets and especially entering data into text cells leads to many errors. Excel data validation tools allow you to reduce the inaccuracy of Excel data entry by restricting the set of possible values to a pre-defined list. Users can select the item from a drop-down list with few choices, instead of typing text into the data entry form template.