I have downloaded a report from the Campaigns table in ZOHO CRM as an Excel file. I have then imported this as a new table in ZOHO Reporter as I want to recognise the cost of leads.

However I have tried every formula I can think of in SQL to convert the Actual Cost column from campaigns into a number or currency format and none work. CAST("column" AS NUMBER) no good.

I then found that you might be able to change the datatype directly in the table but because the data is Plain Text Reports wont let you do this either.

I am really at a loss and losing a bit of confidence in this tool - it seems pretty basic that you might want to upload a table from CRM into it which contains currency and then do some analysis on it doesn't it. 

If there is an answer I am missing please let me know.

Nick