Question

I have a pivot table in Excel and the sum of the items should equal zero. Instead I am getting a number very, very close to zero (-3.63797880709171E-12). As @Tim Williams pointed out in his comment this is a known artifact of decimal <–> binary floating point conversions.

My main concern here is really in the formatting of the result. I am trying to apply an accounting format where a $0 shows as $ - as opposed to $0.00. The $ - format is important because it allows you to look at a glance and see which columns “tie out” when comparing sets of numbers. When some zeroes display as $0.00 and others display as $ - this is much more difficult.

For example,

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╦══════════╗
║                   Formula                    ║  Result  ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════╬══════════╣
║ = 1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1  ║  $ 0.00  ║
║ =-1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1  ║  $(0.00) ║
║                                           0  ║  $   -   ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╩══════════╝

I would like the result for all three formulas to show as $ -. Is there a way to force that to happen? Perhaps there is a way to force sums in a pivot table to round to the nearest penny (i.e., hundredth)?

Answer 1

Try changing your formula to this so that it rounds to the nearest 10th (change the last 1 to something bigger if you need more precision).

= round(1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1, 1)

Edit:
If you are unable to change the formula, you can also use a custom display format For the result along the lines of:

[<0.05]"-";[>-0.05]"-";$0.00

I have not tested this, but you should get the idea.