Thread: Column data shifts down for unknown reason

I've used Excel for years doing general spreadsheet work--nothing fancy, mainly entering data, formulas, occasionally inserting rows and columns, etc. I've never had the problem I've experienced twice now in the last week, and unfortunately it's on a big database on my work computer in my new job.

The problem is that I'll get data in a column to shift down 1 or more cell positions (one time it was just 1 position, another time it was 4 before I caught the error). It isn't noticed right away because of the sheer volume of data in the table for which I'm entering data, but there are occasional planned empty rows where it becomes clear the the shift has occurred. In other words, there are data continuing down in the "bad" column when there shouldn't be due to the empty row in the other columns, then there is the empty space in the "bad" column a few rows below the adjacent columns' empty space, and then the data resumes again the same number of rows below the start of the next set of data (in the other columns). There are only 2 columns in which I'm manually entering data (the other columns are filled-down data), and these are the columns where this phenomenon is happening.

I'm not doing anything so direct as actively doing a "shift down" option on the column(s) in question. And so far it's only been a downward shift in the column data. So my question is: can there be any way this sort of thing can be happening due to an inadvertent key stroke mistake or any other indirect way that I'm not aware of? Obviously none of you is watching me do the data entry, but as I said I'm really not doing anything out of the ordinary (at least intentionally), and I've done this sort of thing for years without any such problem.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.