Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Ignoring N/A Values in a Sum.

Ignoring N/A Values in a Sum

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 6, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Chris has a series of worksheets in a workbook, one for each month of the year. On a summary worksheet he wants to sum the values in the same cell on each worksheet. Chris does this by using a formula similar to the following:

=SUM(January:December!B19)

This works fine, except for those instances where one of the B19 cells in the range may contain the value #N/A. In that case, Chris gets #N/A in the result on the summary sheet, as well. What Chris would like is to have the #N/A results ignored for the sum, as if the cells were blank.

There are a couple of ways to approach this problem. Perhaps the best method is to look at the formula used in cell B19 of each month's worksheet. For instance, let's say that the formula on each worksheet looked like this:

=SUM(B1:B18)

You could change the formulas on these individual worksheets so that they took the possibility of #N/A values into account. For instance, the following would work just fine at B19 on each worksheet:

=SUMIF(B1: B18,"<>#N/A")

This causes the sum in cell B19, on each worksheet, to be based on all the non-N/A values in the range. Because of this, you might think you could do this on the summary sheet:

=SUMIF(January:December!B19,"<>#N/A")

This won't work, however, because the SUMIF function is not "three-dimensional" in nature; it cannot be used on a range of worksheets in the manner shown. It is for this reason that the best solution is to go back to the individual values, on each worksheet, that are being tallied on the summary worksheet.

If your formula on the individual month worksheets don't use the SUM function, it is obviously not as easy to change them to use SUMIF. In that case, you may want to "enclose" the existing formula in a check to see if the formula returns an error value. This technique is done this way:

=IFERROR(<current_B19_formula>,0)

The IFERROR function simply checks to see if there is an error returned by the formula. If there is, then it returns 0; if there isn't, then it returns the result of the formula.

There is a big difference between the IFERROR approach and using the SUMIF approach mentioned earlier. The SUMIF approach returns a sum for all non-N/A values in the range, but the IFERROR approach returns a 0 for the entire sum if there are any #N/A values in the range. This can obviously affect what shows up on your summary sheet, so you will need to determine which approach is best suited to the data you are working with.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10233) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Ignoring N/A Values in a Sum.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Creating Long Page Footers

Ever wish that you could create nice, long footers that appear at the bottom of each page when you print your worksheet? ...

Discover More

Aligning Paragraphs in a Macro

Using a macro to format your document (or portions of your document) is not all that uncommon. If you want your macro to ...

Discover More

Calculating a Future Date

Need to figure out a date a certain number of days, weeks, months, or years in the future? It's easy to do using the ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Changing the Reference in a Named Range

Define a named range today and you may want to change the definition at some future point. It's rather easy to do, as ...

Discover More

Where Is that Text?

Looking for a formula that can return the address of a cell containing a text string? Look no further; the solution is in ...

Discover More

Referencing Every Third External Cell

When you enter references to cells in a worksheet, using the Fill Handle to propagate the formulas to other cells can be ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 - 7?

2020-06-13 17:16:33

John Mann

I'm inclined to wonder why one wouldn't want to find the cause of an error and correct it, rather than ignoring it.


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.