Salesforce report export (Formatted Report / grouped-subtotal shape)
A .xlsx a rep clicks "Export" on from any Salesforce report, wrongly assumed to be a clean table of records. In "Formatted Report" mode it is a printout of the on-screen report, title, filters, grouping, subtotals and grand total baked in as cells, not a record extract.
The shape, how the file is really laid out
Row 1 is the report name, not a header. Below it sit metadata lines ("Filtered
By: Stage equals ...", an "as of" run timestamp) and one or more blank rows
before the real column header appears, often around row 4-6. If the report is
grouped (e.g. by Owner or Stage), each group emits a group-label row, then its
detail rows, then a subtotal row carrying the same currency in the Amount column
as real deals do; a "Grand Totals" row closes the file. Amounts render as
display strings with currency symbols, thousands separators and parentheses for
negatives ("$1,240,000.00", "($3,500.00)"). The alternative "Details Only" mode
strips all of this and gives a flat table, the two modes share one Export button
and look identical in the dialog.
The traps
SUM(Amount) double-counts: every group subtotal and the grand total are ordinary rows in the same column as detail deals, so a naive sum can land at roughly 2x the true figure (once for details, once for the subtotals, again for the grand total).
- Every trap in this export, worked through
- The reconciliation anchor, the total the file asserts about itself
- The refusal cases, when to stop and ask instead of guess
Reference: Salesforce Help "Export a Report" (Formatted Report vs Details Only) · Salesforce report grouping/subtotal documentation