Why won't excel sum negative dollars?

Question

Why won't excel sum negative dollars? Please don't waste my time saying its because cells are formatted as text. I am using sum and the range of cells needed. Or is Excel just not able to handle negative dollar values? This is what I have in the cell=SUM(E5:E45) and all it shows is a dash. Sheet was originally downloaded as a .CVS

Answer 1

Hi @Scott Schulte,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

According to your question, I have created a .csv file with your shared numbers. When I open the csv file in a different device, the values I added are still saved as numeric values but in currency formatting.

Then I select all the range > change the format to Accounting formatting and use the SUM formula (in my file it's =SUM(A1:A14)). As a result, Excel still calculates them properly.

Therefore, the issue is not about the values are in text or number formatting but it's because the sum is actually zero so accounting format displays it as a dash. You can check the result of the SUM cell bu change the format to Number/General to see what the actual calculating answer is.

I greatly recommend you can try double checking the data range E5:E45 again if there is any positive number. From your screenshot if all numbers are negative, so the sum should be negative too.

Please notify me if I've misunderstood anything about your situation. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.    

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I look forward to your response.

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