Using "" in an IFERROR formula

[SimonHughes]

Hello, I have created a simple formula, IFERROR(B1-A1,"") where the contents of B1 and A1 are formatted as currency, £

There are blank cells in some rows and I wanted to return a blank but the formula returns £0.00. I have solved it using IF(B1>0,B1-A1,"") but I would pfrefer to use IFERROR, any ideas on why it wont work?

I am using Excel 2010

 

[barry houdini]

If either or both of A1 and B1 are blank then when you use

=B1-A1

that doesn't give an error, the blanks are treated as zeroes

 

[SimonHughes]

Hi Barry, I still get a rturn of £0.00. As I said, I have solved the problem but I am interested to know why the IFERROR does not work as well.

 

[Jonmo1]

I think you missed Barry's point..

If A1 and B1 are blank, then B1-A1 is NOT an error, it's just 0.

To see for yourself, put this in a cell
=B1-A1

You'll see it returns 0, not an error when both are blank.
Basically, blanks are treated as 0

So if A1-B1 is NOT an error, then IFERROR will not trap it as an error.

So your solution of IF(B1>0,B1-A1,"") is a reasonable solution.

 

[SimonHughes]

I did miss the point. Thanks for taking the time to explain, appreciated.