AutoSum lost a penny

[Guest]

Hi I am trying to use autosum to add up a colum of figures but it keeps
loosing a penny. for example
£551.99
£459.99
£402.49
£344.99
£632.44
£114.99
£52.89
when these totals are added together on a calculator the total is 2559.78
but when I use autosum the total appears as 2559.77.
Please can anyone shed any light as to why this may be. I have checked that
there are no other characters in the cells or formula.

 

[MartinW]

Hi, Take a look here.

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/pennyoff.html


HTH
Martin

 

[JE McGimpsey]

See

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/pennyoff.html

 

[David Biddulph]

Calculate for yourself the exact binary representation of 551.99, and that
will explain the problem. [Hint: there isn't an exact binary
representation of most decimal numbers. 0.5 you are OK, 0.25 yes, but 0.1
no.]

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/pennyoff.html

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. It was most helpful. The instructions in your link
were for an older version of excel and so it took me some time to find where
the instructions led to. For anyone who has the same problem and are using
excel 2007 they need to click on the Office button/excel options/advanced and
browse to 'when calculating this workbook' and click set precision as
displayed.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. It was most helpful. The instructions in your link
were for an older version of excel and so it took me some time to find where
the instructions led to. For anyone who has the same problem and are using
excel 2007 they need to click on the Office button/excel options/advanced and
browse to 'when calculating this workbook' and click set precision as
displayed.