----- Original Message -----

From: Alan Lemly

To: main@jfw.groups.io

Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 4:40 PM

Subject: Re: Need help with an Excel formula

Hi Shirley,

 

What might be wrong with your formula is hard to diagnose with the information you've provided. I'll state what I think your bank debits and deposits spreadsheet looks like and we'll go from there. I suspect row 1 is your column headings and that column D contains debits, column E contains deposits, and column F contains a running balance. Assuming you use a different spreadsheet for each month, I would suggest that cell F2 be the opening balance for the month which should equal your closing balance from the previous month's spreadsheet. I personally would manually input the starting balance for cell F2 because I'm not a big fan of using formulas to bring amounts from other spreadsheets. Row 3 should contain the activity for the current month so the formula in cell F3 would be =(F2-D3+E3). I expect columns A through C contain date, description, and some other text field but those don't have formulas and don't seem to be giving you a problem.

 

I would check to make sure your opening balance in cell F2 is a manually input number and then I would input the formula I provided above into cell F3 and go from there. If you're still having problems, make sure columns D through F are formatted as numbers.

 

Good luck.

 

Alan Lemly

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Shirley Tracy
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2019 2:11 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Need help with an Excel formula

 

Hi Listers,

 

First, I do not fully know how to use Excel like many of you who probably use it for work. But I do use it for keeping our Writers Club’s roster and my bank account spread sheets. I used to have a formula that I could use in keeping a spread sheet of my bank debits and deposits—balancing my account. The formula I was given was =(E3-D3)+F2 and it helped me keep account of the totals when putting in debits and credits. Used to work great. Now, however, when I start a new monthly spread sheet, I get a message that the formula I key in is an error. I don’t know if something has gotten erased from the formula I had in my original file, or if the formulas have changed over time. Otherwise, I have no need to learn Excel. Can someone just please help me with this formula or tell me what might be wrong?

 

Thank you.

 

Shirley