The following example creates a budgets table to show a department (dept) its current budget (current_year) and its previous budget (previous_year). For the current year, NULL is used for departments with budgets that have not changed from the previous year, and 0 is used for budgets that have not yet been determined. To find out the average of only those departments that receive a budget and to include the budget value from the previous year (use the previous_year value, where the current_year is NULL), combine the NULLIF and COALESCE functions.

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
IF OBJECT_ID ('dbo.budgets','U') IS NOT NULL
   DROP TABLE budgets;
GO
SET NOCOUNT ON;
CREATE TABLE dbo.budgets
(
   dept            tinyint   IDENTITY,
   current_year      decimal   NULL,
   previous_year   decimal   NULL
);
INSERT budgets VALUES(100000, 150000);
INSERT budgets VALUES(NULL, 300000);
INSERT budgets VALUES(0, 100000);
INSERT budgets VALUES(NULL, 150000);
INSERT budgets VALUES(300000, 250000);
GO  
SET NOCOUNT OFF;
SELECT AVG(NULLIF(COALESCE(current_year,
   previous_year), 0.00)) AS 'Average Budget'
FROM budgets;
GO

Here is the result set.

Average Budget

--------------

212500.000000

(1 row(s) affected)

To show the similarity between NULLIF and CASE, the following queries evaluate whether the values in the MakeFlag and FinishedGoodsFlag columns are the same. The first query uses NULLIF. The second query uses the CASE expression.

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SELECT ProductID, MakeFlag, FinishedGoodsFlag, 
   NULLIF(MakeFlag,FinishedGoodsFlag)AS 'Null if Equal'
FROM Production.Product
WHERE ProductID < 10;
GO

SELECT ProductID, MakeFlag, FinishedGoodsFlag,'Null if Equal' =
   CASE
       WHEN MakeFlag = FinishedGoodsFlag THEN NULL
       ELSE MakeFlag
   END
FROM Production.Product
WHERE ProductID < 10;
GO