Incorrect result from a calculation

[Helen Fuller]

I have been working with a fairly simple spreadsheet of
my personal expenses. Ihave categorised items and
entered a cost amount for a certain time frame eg;
weekly. I have put in a simple sum formula for each
category - to show expenditure for each category.

I have then created another column to calculate all these
to a consistent demoninator eg: annual cost. No problems
until this point.

I then wanted to do this for a monthly cost and thus
added another column. In this column I simply used the
results from the annual column and then divided by 12 (=
(D44/12). This all worked - almost perfectly. However
some columns results were $0.00 rather than a correct
amount. Ihave also created a simple summary feature by
merely listing the total amounts from each category and
copying these to an list at the bottom of the worksheet.
This list of totals will not sum calculate - my result is
being displayed as $0.00 . In both cases the formula
looks correct and now error messages appear.

Help..

 

[Nick Hodge]

Helen

I'm finding it difficult to understand you question. The parts I understand
would point to the fact that some numbers are being treated as text and
therefore will not be seen by, for example, a SUM formula.

Try looking at the number being used carefully. Do they left align without
being formatted as so? A sure sign they are being seen as text.

You can go through and re-format (Format>Cells...>Number) back to a
'number', but XL is normally a little more stubborn than that. If it is,
enter a 1 in a spare cell, select all the actual numbers, (avoid those with
underlying formulae) and Edit>Paste Special...>Values+Multiply. This
'kicks' excel into converting them to numbers. (multiplying them by one, of
course, does not change the number