Forum Discussion
Excel
If I enter a simple formula such as SUM(A1:A7), it gives me the wrong total and sometimes comes back as 0 when there are values in the listed cells. Doesn't seem to be a erroneous formula, so what c...
Given a sufficient level of malice all sorts of things are possible!
I have used a filled formula to demonstrate that 'what you see is not necessarily what is there'. In day to day life the most common situation is numbers as text.
Why would it arbitrarily change from numberic to text after reliably working in the same spreadsheet for over 8 years? Are you saying the malice is ion Microsoft's part?
No, not really. These, and a handful of other techniques came from a book which had a section helping auditors look for fraud. In your case it will be some inadvertent error in handling the data. However, the idea of applying a SUM function to each individual value before attempting to sum the range has some merit.
- Thanks Peter,
Your idea about an inadvertent error in handling the data proved to be the answer. I checked the formulas on a feeder sheet and found one line that was not proper.. Instead of summarizing a month's transactions in each category, it summarized not only the current month but also the remainder of the year which seemed to be in conflict with subsequent months that properly added up the month's transactions in each category. Formula (user) error, to be sure.