The result is, of course, the same as using the longer method. That total is then subtracted from the Gross Income in cell B1. The SUM function adds the values within the B3 to B6 range. Since the values to be deducted above are positive numbers, we’ve placed them in parentheses (so that this portion is calculated first). The above method can get quite cumbersome if the list of numbers to be subtracted is a long one! We can treat the numbers in the list as a cell range instead, and use the SUM function to our advantage. Of course, we can use cell references as we learned before.
In the example below, we can calculate net income by subtracting all the deductions from the gross income one by one, using the formula number1 - number2 - number3…. Subtract by listing numbers one at a time.
You may have a situation where you want to subtract two or more numbers, or numbers in a range.