Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later 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 February 22, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


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:

=IF(ISERROR(<current_B19_formula>),0,<current_B19_formula>)

The IF function looks for a True/False value, which is returned by the ISERROR function. Thus, if the formula returns an error value (such as #N/A), then the IF function returns 0, otherwise it returns the result of the original formula. This approach checks for any error result; if you would prefer to have it only check for #N/A results and ignore them, then you can use the following variation:

=IF(ISNA(<current_B19_formula>),0,<current_B19_formula>)

There is a big difference between these IF-based approaches and using the SUMIF approach mentioned earlier in the tip. The SUMIF approach returns a sum for all non-N/A values in the range, but the IF-based 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 (3156) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) 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

Printing a Style Sheet

Styles are a fantastic way to format your documents easily and consistently. At some point you may want to print out a ...

Discover More

Modified Rounding

Rounding is normally done so that values greater than or equal to .5 are rounded up and less than .5 are rounded down. ...

Discover More

Counting Values in Table Cells

In Excel it is easy to count how many times a certain character occurs in a column of cells. In Word, it is a bit ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Applying Range Names to Formulas

If you define your named ranges after you create your formulas, you can have Excel update those formulas to reflect the ...

Discover More

Matching Formatting when Concatenating

Convert a numeric value to text and you may be surprised by how Excel displays the value. Here's a run-down on exactly ...

Discover More

Errors When Subtracting

When you subtract two numbers from each other, you have a certain expectation of what Excel should deliver. What if you ...

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 four more than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon 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.