I don't know about the evaluation order, but why are you having to use any kind of fancy calculations? If you perform your query correctly, there's no reason to have to worry about how to sum a given column. I suspect that you are "on to" the nature of the problem, but getting past evaluation order probably is NOT the right way to fix the problem. Relying on evaluation order is a time-bomb just waiting for a data or structural change, or maybe even a simple change of server hosting the report.

Also, it's hard for anyone to help you very much when you've provided no details on the query that feeds your report, as we have no idea what you're results look like nor even any idea what the data is. Understandably, payroll data brings privacy issues to the forefront, but a set of "not real" test data and the actual query could be a lot more useful in helping you than a question on evaluation order.

Steve

(aka smunson)

:):):)