I have run into a problem with number differences, with data imported from Access 2000 into Excel XP. Initially I had thought it was an Excel problem, but one of my co-workers thinks he remembers seeing something about Access causing this kind of problem. While I am describing the issue in Excel, the data is imported from Access.
In col. A & B have percents (A2+ B2 =100%, i.e. the totality of the data) from one set of numbers, and Col. C & D have percents (C2 + D2=100%, i.e. the totality of the data) .
In col. E I subtract A2-C2 and get this number: 2.4112898185579400%
In col. F I subtract B2-D2 and get this number: -2.4112898185579500%
Technically they should be identical (except for minus sign – thus added = 0). In 739 rows of comparisons I get about 1/3 of them where they are identical. The others are off by this decimal or sometimes a little more. For most purposes such discrepancies would not be a problem. However, when using IF statements or any kind Match function, these differences mean that the two columns (E and F) will not be the same, hence the formula will not be “accurate.”
Is there a known problem with Access and number errors like this? Can anything be done to correct?
There does not seem to be a search feature (although the FAQs describes one, there is none on the menubar) for this web site. And I haven’t found anything about this problem in other searching.
Any helps/suggestions/directions would be greatly appreciated.
