Comments on: Excel … It Doesn’t Add Up! http://elainegiles.co.uk/2008/05/27/excel-it-doesnt-add-up/ - Semper Fi - Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:23:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Malt23 http://elainegiles.co.uk/2008/05/27/excel-it-doesnt-add-up/comment-page-1/#comment-1439 Malt23 Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:03:41 +0000 http://elainegiles.co.uk/2008/05/27/excel-it-doesnt-add-up/#comment-1439 Thanks. Very helpful. Since I work mostly with Accounting and Financial data, the "Precision as Displayed" approach seems like the best fit. Thanks. Very helpful. Since I work mostly with Accounting and Financial data, the “Precision as Displayed” approach seems like the best fit.

]]> By: MikeT http://elainegiles.co.uk/2008/05/27/excel-it-doesnt-add-up/comment-page-1/#comment-169 MikeT Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:17:22 +0000 http://elainegiles.co.uk/2008/05/27/excel-it-doesnt-add-up/#comment-169 I have a spreadsheet (Numbers as it happens but it could have been Excel) that I use for finances. The current balance on my credit card is £1418.59 (in case you're wondering, I have recently paid for my Man United season tickets). The credit card is more for convenience than extravagance so when it gets used, I try and cover the spending by transferring money to a savings account, thereby having enough funds to pay it off each month (of course that's the theory but doesn't always happen in practice) So now the balance of the savings account is £1418.59, which means that, in reality, I have enough money to cover the credit card bill but... According to numbers, 1418.59 - 1418.59 = 2.27374E-13 (which in real money is 0.000000000000227373675443232) By the way, the problem doesn't happen if the cells are formatted as currency I have a spreadsheet (Numbers as it happens but it could have been Excel) that I use for finances. The current balance on my credit card is £1418.59 (in case you’re wondering, I have recently paid for my Man United season tickets).

The credit card is more for convenience than extravagance so when it gets used, I try and cover the spending by transferring money to a savings account, thereby having enough funds to pay it off each month (of course that’s the theory but doesn’t always happen in practice)

So now the balance of the savings account is £1418.59, which means that, in reality, I have enough money to cover the credit card bill but…

According to numbers, 1418.59 – 1418.59 = 2.27374E-13 (which in real money is 0.000000000000227373675443232)

By the way, the problem doesn’t happen if the cells are formatted as currency

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