If there are any non-numeric entries in that field, excel will use Count. This
includes text and empty cells.

I don't know of a way to change this behavior when you're building the
pivottable, but you can adjust them after you build it.

In fact, Debra Dalgleish shares a pivottable addin:
http://contextures.com/xlPivotAddIn.html

And this is from the instructions page:
http://contextures.com/xlPivotAddIn02.html#DataFields


Becky wrote:

When you're using a pivot table, and you pull a field into the pivot, it
defaults to "count". Is there any way to make Excel default to "sum" so that
it doesn't have to be changed every time ? What a pain.

--

Dave Peterson