How do you deal with the result of sum query when there is no data.

[Frank McArthur]

I have sales divided into catagories. I query each catagory with a sum query then add the results. If a catagory has no sales I get no results when I add them together. What am I doing wrong? Can I get an empty catagory to return a zero from the sum query?

[Rabbit]

It would help if you post the query. But it sounds like you need to outer join the categories table to the sales table.

[NeoPa]

The question is very unclear and ambiguous so I'll try to answer what you ask, but if you want more sense you'll probably need to make the question clearer.

It sounds like the result from one of your categories is Null, due to there being no data for that category. If you add a Null value to valid numbers in VBA then naturally the result is Null.

There is a function available (Nz()) to return a valid value if the parameter has one, otherwise a specified default if not. Nz(Null, 0) returns 0. This is a defined and valid value, as opposed to Null, which is neither in this context.