Your issue will be that the formulas return zero and they are affecting your
calculation. There are a couple of formulas that will work.

1.
=AVERAGE(IF(A1:A7<0, A1:A7))
This is an array formula and as such it must be commited with
Shift+Ctrl+<Enter as opposed to just <Enter

2.
=SUMIF(A1:A7, "<0")/COUNTIF(A1:A7, "<0")
--
HTH...

Jim Thomlinson


"Ed O'Brien" wrote:

Excel 2007.

I have 3 columns of data where the daily amount over the month is posted by
a formula relating to another sheet in the same book. Below each column I
want to display the daily Average of the data in that column.

When the data was typed into the columns (cells) the "AVERAGE" function
worked okay. However, now that the data is called up via a formula, the
"AVERAGE" calculates across all 31 cells in the column, including those with
no data yet posted.

Can someone tell me how I get the "AVERAGE" function to ignore the empty
cells.

TIA for any help.

Ed