Formats for Excel formulas

It is important to make sure that criteria in Excel formulas have the right format, otherwise problems can occur.

Note: where possible, Microsoft Excel tries to interpret criteria as cell references. If it can, they are then converted to cell references. If it can't, then they get quoted and become strings.

Using the similar example to the 'direct Excel data entry' example outlined above, if a period is specified as B0803 for example, the formula will look for cell B803. This is because of some of the programming and 'smart formulas' contained in Excel. However, if the data is entered in quotations such as "B0803" the value is taken as absolute.