Number Formatting Not Converting into Connection Worksheet

I have an excel document saved in a SharePoint document library. I then have another excel document where I created a connection back to the document being saved on SP (went to data connections->add->browse for more->enter the SP URL & found the document) and then opened that connection up as its own worksheet (existing connections->chose my connection). In the original worksheet (saved on SP), there are about 20 columns that are formatted as numbers. However, when I open the connection up in the new document, half of these columns are still number formatted, but the rest are being displayed as text EVEN THOUGH they are technically formatted as numbers (I right click->format cells & they are formatted as numbers). I can click into a cell and press enter and it will "come up to speed" and enter into number formatting, but as soon as I refresh my connection back to the original document, they go back to their text formatting despite the fact that the connection they are drawing from has them saved as numbers! Very frustrating. Its not a SP issue because I recreated the scenario by saving the original document to my computer and it did the same thing. I even went through one column in the original document and made sure there were no spaces saved to trigger the column to go to text- nothing. Any suggestions?