summing positive and negative numbers

[Helen Wills]

I am trying to sum a positive and a negative value to give a positive value

i.e

[TABLE="width: 264"]
<colgroup><col><col span="3"></colgroup><tbody>[TR]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD]Positive units[/TD]
[TD]Negative Units[/TD]
[TD]Total Units[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]UK[/TD]
[TD]3,722[/TD]
[TD]-8,378[/TD]
[TD]12,100[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]


Ideally this needs to be done automatically with no further manual steps as it feeds in to a dashboard and I will be asking other users to put in the data across the globe who aren't excel savvy and i want to avoid asking them to do any formula steps

Thanks
Helen

 

[shift-del]

Helen,

simply:

=SUM(B2,-C2)

 

[steve the fish]

If you always have positive then negative you can just subtract the negative from the positive:

=B2-C2

Or this will convert any negative value to positive then add them:

=ABS(B2)+ABS(C2)

 

[Helen Wills]

this has worked - thank you so much x