Doesn't that show "Error" is the answer *does* equal zero?
Did you mean to say
=IF(SUM(J12:M12)-I12<0,"Error",SUM(J12:M12)-I12) ?

That would work OK if the numbers are integers, but if you have decimal
numbers (such as currency with 2 decimal places) you may find that roundings
of the fixed point binary representations may give a small but non-zero
result where you expected zero. If you want to eliminate such cases you may
want something like
=IF(ABS(SUM(J12:M12)-I12)<10^-6,"Error",SUM(J12:M12)-I12)
Adjust the error tolerance to suit.
--
David Biddulph

"Eva" wrote in message
...
try this
=IF(SUM(J12:M12)-I12<=0,"Error",SUM(J12:M12)-I12)
Eva
"kara" wrote:

I need to create a function that will display an error if the sum of a
range
of cells subtracted from another cell does not equal 0. I figure the
first
part is
=SUM((J12:M12)-I12) that should total 0 and if it does not I need error
to
be shown. Any advice/help greatly appreciated