Help with basic IF statement

[Pamela_Giles]

This seems like ridiculously easy formula to write, but I’m stymied.

IF({Paid} ≥ {120%}, ({Paid} - FMV),0)

If the person Paid more than 120% (120% is a column calculating 120% of the Fair Market Value), then the value of their tax receipt is the amount the Paid - FMV. Otherwise, their receipt is 0.

It seems so easy! But none of my attempts work. What am I missing?

Thanks.

[Pamela_Giles]

Thank you, @ScottWorld. I was not an expert at Filemaker Pro either, but I did love it and had managed to make formulas work. That probably IS why I thought ≥ would work!

Filemaker was very expensive to upgrade, though, and it was hard for my business partner (who lives in another city and is not a techie) to use my databases. AirTable’s online base system is fantastic for our situation when it works.

[ScottWorld]

Pamela_Giles:

I was not an expert at Filemaker Pro either, but I did love it and had managed to make formulas work. That probably IS why I thought ≥ would work!

Haha!

Pamela_Giles:

Filemaker was very expensive to upgrade, though, and it was hard for my business partner (who lives in another city and is not a techie) to use my databases

Yes, FileMaker is expensive & can be difficult to upgrade. (On the other hand, it is a full-blown programming language with infinite customizability.)

I feel blessed that I am both an Airtable developer AND a FileMaker developer — because I’ve got my clients’ needs covered, no matter what sort of a project they’re trying to tackle! :slightly_smiling_face:

Based on our thread here, I typed up a product suggestion regarding making error messages easier to understand in Airtable — maybe you can chime in there with your own experience & opinion:

Better error handling in formulas Product Suggestions

It can be really difficult to troubleshoot broken formulas in Airtable, because the error message only tells us that something went wrong — but it doesn’t tell us WHERE something went wrong. In most other programming languages, the error handling will either: Highlight the part of the formula that is broken. Or tell the user the exact line number & character number of where the formula is broken. Either one of these scenarios would be fine! :slight_smile: This product suggestion was inspire…

[ScottWorld]

Jeremy_Oglesby:

I write nearly all of my Airtable formulas in text editor (coding) software, rather than in Airtable’s formula field editor, so that I can format them as I did above – and then I just copy-paste my resulting formula into the Airtable formula field editor. I find it to be a much nicer experience, as the formula field editor is very finicky, and nearly always catches me trying to enter tabs or new lines.

@Jeremy_Oglesby, yes, I love the idea of writing formulas in text editor software, so it can catch mistakes like missing parentheses. I enjoy using BBEdit on the Mac — what do you use? Also, is there a certain “language” that you enable in your text editor software while you’re writing your Airtable formulas, in order to get syntax coloring as you’re typing? BBEdit will apply coloring based on what language you choose (but they obviously don’t have Airtable listed as a language). Is there a language that is “pretty close” to the same formatting as Airtable?