I wanted to make a general comment about Excel for those of you that use the
spreadsheet to create journal entries for posting into your financial
systems. With all of the concern and new regulations making sure that the
financial statements of companies are correct, it seems relevant.

I use Excel to summarize daily reporting into a monthly journal entry,
actually several of them. I have found cases where the formulas in the cells
do not calculate the correct results, which would cause the journal entry to
be incorrect. The formulas range from simple "If" statements to "DSUM" and
"SUMIF" formulas. I have not been able to find a solution to the problem
within my spreadsheets. The only explanation I can come up with is that
Excel is not working correctly.

I take pride in my work and eliminate as much "human error" as I can. But
when I am using a spreadsheet that cannot produce accurate results, it
becomes a reflection on me, not on the software I am using. I don't think
there are many bosses out there that will accept the fact that software with
the Microsoft name on it will not work correctly.

If this problem is actually within Excel itself, then it seems to me that
Microsoft had better get its act together and clean up this software--and
quick. I wonder how Microsoft would like to have a company sue because they
produced inaccurate financials due to the fact that this spreadsheet software
cannot function as it is supposed to.