SUM(children), SUM in Report, Wrong value see example

emiliak001

Sheet – simple example - SUM children SUM Report - WRONG.pdf

When Sum(children) function is used to visualize total cost of the Main Task when subtasks are collapsed, one should not use the SUM in Report as this renders incorrect total value. Example in the attached file

There are ways around it but would be much simpler if SUM in Report would recognize the hierarchy and parent/children tasks in the Source sheet. Otherwise one needs two budget columns, one with sum children if you want to see cost of project when subtasks are collapsed, one without, to use for actual Reporting/ Summaries.

There are ways around it but they cause the problems later e.g looking only at the parent, messes things if you want to plot task cost vs time - because parent time would have different date than the date of the task that the cost is associated with.

Again, it would be much simpler if SUM in Report would recognize the hierarchy and parent/children tasks function used in the Source sheet.