Should I use SharePoint Number column types to store monetary values?

Question

In SharePoint I can create a list column of type 'Number'. I need to store monetary amounts and would like to be able to use this column type rather than having to create a new one.

Are values of this type stored and manipulated by SharePoint (e.g. when summing values in a list view) to prevent loss of precision (i.e. not as some kind of approximate floating point type)?

I have looked at currency columns but they seem to force display of a currency unit which doesn't make sense in my application (and I have a suspicion that they are stored as 'Numbers' under the bonnet).

Answer 1

See the answer to this question on stackoverflow.

Answer 2

I've looked into this and found the following:

• number and currency are the same, just formatted differently
• they are stored in the database as the SQL float data type
• using any more decimal places than 1.00000001 rounds the value in the UI
• using any more decimal places than 1.00000000000001 rounds the value in the database

While they are stored as float in the DB, there is no way to find out how they are handled internally within the application. It's important to test this for your use case to be sure!

(Note: while I have made database queries here to research your question, please do not do this in anything other than a development environment.)