>I thought I did do the steps exactly as you describe above. The only thing I have in addition is a Group By. So my total/sum variable is in the Group Footer. I didn't think this was making the difference but maybe it did.
>Thank you.


Are you SUMming the variable twice? In other words, if you create a report variable and set the calculate option to SUM ... and then when you use the report variable in the Data Group Footer you also mark that as SUM .. you have now told it to SUM and already SUMmed variable which will give you way more than you want.