Conflicting Calculations

[Kay]

Hello all,

I have audited my formulas over and over and am seeing an odd behaviour in
Excel 2007 SP2. I am comparing cost rates. One contract price will be
0.0140 per minute.Another contract price will be 0.0159.

Each will be compared against the same minute field. Obviously, if you
multiple the first contract price by the minute it will be less than the
second contract price. However, when you add both columns up to get a total
of about 40,000 records, the second contract amount totals less than the
first contract amount. Impossible, right? I even tested with a sumrpoduct
and received the same results. I selected each column, separately and looked
at the auto-calculate value. Once again the larger contract price shows the
smaller total. Can anyone explain.

 

[pmartglass]

At first glance I agree with you that this doesn't sound right. My first
thought would be to check the prices in the second column to make sure that
they are indead larger than the first column. There may be a range of them
that is not and that would throw off your result. Next, how are you getting
your totals. Do you have a column that does the math or are you using a
sumproduct ? If you would like some help in seeing what the problem is, I
will be happy to look with you.