When you add multiple fields to the row or column area, the outer fields automatically get subtotals. For example, in this pivot table, Region and Employee are the outer fields, and a Total row was added for each item.

Sometimes these subtotals are useful, but in other pivot tables you might want to stop them from appearing.

Manually Turn Off the Subtotals

Unfortunately, here’s no setting you can change to stop the subtotals from automatically appearing for outer row and column fields. However, you can manually turn them off after they appear:

1. Double-click the field button.

2. For Subtotals, select None, then click OK.

Programmatically Turn Off the Subtotals

If you frequently turn off the subtotals, you might find it easier to use a macro to do the work for you. You can create your own code, or download a copy of my free Pivot Table add-in, Pivot Power.

It has commands to show or hide the Row, Column, or all Subtotals in a pivot table.

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In your pivot table, you might like the subtotals to appear at the top of the row field items.

If the pivot table is in outline (Report) layout, you can format the field to control where its subtotals appear:

1. Double-click the field button to open the PivotTable Field dialog box.
2. Click the Layout button.
3. Select Show items in outline form and add a checkmark to Display subtotals at top of group.
4. Click OK, then click OK to close the PivotTable Field dialog box.

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For more information on pivot tables, see the Pivot Table Topics on my Contextures web site.

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In your source data, you might record the amount of time that employees have spent working on projects. For example, Jim worked on Project A for 8 hours Monday, 8 hours Tuesday, 6 hours Wednesday and 3 hours Thursday, for a total of 25 hours.

In the pivot table, you want the total time per project, and Project A should show a total of 25 hours.

However, your pivot table shows 1:00 as the total, instead of 25:00.

This happens because the results are shown as time rather than total time. The first 24 hours are counted as one day, and the remaining hour is 1:00 AM of the second day. The 1:00 in the Project A Total represents the 1:00 AM time.

To see the total time, format the cells that contain total times with the custom number format [h]:mm, and they’ll total correctly.

To apply the custom format

1. In the pivot table, right-click on the Sum of Hours field button
2. Click on Field Settings
3. Click the Number button
4. In the Category list, click on Custom
5. In the Type box, enter: [h]:mm
   
6. Click OK, twice, to close the dialog boxes.
7. The pivot table will now show the total time for hours worked on each project.

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For more information on pivot tables, see the PivotTable Topics on my Contextures web site.