You don't need to use the PRODUCT function. Just use something like this:

=A1*B1

If one or the other cell is empty the result will be 0.

Or, if you want the result cell to return a blank:

=IF(COUNT(A1:B1)<2,"",A1*B1)


--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"carolyn" wrote in message
...
I am making an invoice and I have many lines blank under "hours". I made
one
cell with the hourly rate. I then put in the product funtion in te amount
own as the hourly rate cell times the hours work to get the amount for the
amount of that one job description. that works great. the problem is
when I
have unused columns, the hour column should be blank, and I want it to be
blank. But what happens is amount own mutiplies the hourly rate by one.
It
should be zero. how can i make blank cells to equal zero, and NOT one??