What it means:

“#VALUE!” is the spreadsheet’s way of telling you that it is seeing text where it expected a numerical value.

Typical causes:

This can occur after assumptions have been updated, and unexpected characters (like space, comma, dash, etc), or letters have accidentally been entered instead of numbers.

How to fix it:

Here are some common things to look for in the cells you updated:

Spaces – A space isn’t always treated as a zero. Simple formulae like SUM will work fine, but others will fail. It is ok to use the delete key to clear an assumption, or enter 0 for an assumption, but not a space. If you have a big block of assumptions with empty cells but aren’t sure where the space might be use the “Find” tool (open using CTRL + F or CMD + F) to search for a space in cell values.

Comments – Adding comments as text in assumption cells will cause a #Value! error. Instead, there are special comments (found in review menu) that can be added to any cell without breaking it. Alternatively enter text for comments that is always visible outside of the range of cells holding the assumption values.

Symbols “( ,- )” – Accounting formats for numbers add brackets (for negatives), commas (to separate thousands 000,000s), dashes to show zero values. However, when entering numbers we do not need to manually type any of those and it can sometimes cause problems. If we enter “-” in front of a value (e.g. -123 for negative 123) that will be fine, but “-” on its own is assumed to be text (enter 0 instead), and may cause this error. If you have a big block of values, but are not sure where the “-” is, look for one on the left of the cell (as text will normally align left, and numbers will align right), or use the “Find” tool to search for a “-” in cell values.