88% of spreadsheets have errors

[MichaelB]

I still use Lotus 1-2-3 as my primary spreadsheet.

 

[obgyn65]

I like the "what if" and optimizing functions in Excel. Not sure if Lotus has these ?

I still use Lotus 1-2-3 as my primary spreadsheet.

 

[Independent]

The error rate was actually found to be 89%, there was an error in his spreadsheet.

 

[smjsl]

One thing that I try to do in important worksheets is to have a check number... IOW, you can usually calculate things in a couple of ways... so I do it both ways and have a cell that should either equal the other one or a cell that equals zero (subtract the two)... this has helped me out a number of times when something gets moved and a formula is not what you think it is... ie, it has a fixed cell when you thought it was dynamic...

+1

I also find that whenever I can compute same thing in two ways, I do so, and put in "Check" fields that have to be either green 0 or red non-zero. (I use conditional formatting for the fonts of these Check fields and then just copy paste this formatting to all other "check" fields. I found a few times I needed to round the results or consider anything between -0.001 and 0.001 as 0, but this is all minor.)

I try to search out such opportunities to double check the work. A number of times, the reds caught something that needed to be fixed. It's not a 100% method by any means since it's only as good as the number of cells being double-checked and original data itself could be erroneous, but it's better than nothing I think.

 

[Midpack]

I got to be really good at (don't laugh) Lotus 1-2-3.

Lotus 1-2-3 was so ubiquitous at one time (and I thought it was excellent) I'd have never imagined Excel would 'run them out of town.' Same with WordStar and WordPerfect, I never would have imagined Word would kill them off. MS Office has 'owned' their space for a long time.

Not inviting comments re: Microsoft pro or con, just making an observation.

 

[Tadpole]

One thing that I try to do in important worksheets is to have a check number... IOW, you can usually calculate things in a couple of ways... so I do it both ways and have a cell that should either equal the other one or a cell that equals zero (subtract the two)... this has helped me out a number of times when something gets moved and a formula is not what you think it is... ie, it has a fixed cell when you thought it was dynamic...

That is exactly what I do when I can. I find more errors in my simple spreadsheets than in my more complex. I think this is often the case for people.