Using the DECODE function in the ORDER BY clause

Hi everyone, I thought I had this working but it looks like the sort is happening lexicographically for every column, including my money column. I need that column to be sorted numerically. Can anyone tell me how I can force this statement to sort the "quarterlyearnings" column properly?

i.e. the numbers are currently sorting like:

1
100
10000
1000000
2500
300
3400
etc

And they need to sort in low-high/high-low order as you would expect amounts to.

Here is my PL/SQL

Code:

---

PROCEDURE retrieve_cursor (
      p_year      IN      tax_filing_detail.YEAR%TYPE,
      p_qtr        IN      tax_filing_detail.qtr%TYPE,
      p_emplr_id  IN      tax_filing_detail.emplr_id%TYPE,
      p_sort_expr  IN      VARCHAR2 default 'lastname',
      p_sort_dir  IN      VARCHAR2 default '0',
      p_cursor    OUT      filing_detail_cursor
  )
  IS 
  BEGIN   
      IF (p_sort_dir = '0') THEN
        OPEN p_cursor FOR
        SELECT  ID AS ID, ssn AS ssn, first_name AS firstname, middle_name AS middlename, last_name AS lastname,
                  YEAR AS YEAR, qtr AS quarter, seasonal_ind AS seasonalindicator, recd_dt AS datereceived,
                  emplr_id AS employerid, confirmation_id AS confirmationid,
                  qtr_earnings AS quarterlyearnings,
                  weeks_wkd, hrs_wkd, trans_cnt
            FROM tax_filing_detail
            WHERE (emplr_id = p_emplr_id AND YEAR = p_year AND qtr = p_qtr) 
            ORDER BY 
            DECODE(p_sort_expr, 'SSN', ssn,
                                    'Firstname' , firstname,
                                      'MiddleName', middlename,
                                      'LastName', lastname,
                                      'SeasonalIndicator', seasonalindicator,
                                      'QuarterlyEarnings', quarterlyearnings,
                                                          lastname) ASC;       
      ELSE       
        OPEN p_cursor FOR
        SELECT  ID AS ID, ssn AS ssn, first_name AS firstname, middle_name AS middlename, last_name AS lastname,
                  YEAR AS YEAR, qtr AS quarter, seasonal_ind AS seasonalindicator, recd_dt AS datereceived,
                  emplr_id AS employerid, confirmation_id AS confirmationid,
                  qtr_earnings AS quarterlyearnings,
                  weeks_wkd, hrs_wkd, trans_cnt
            FROM tax_filing_detail
            WHERE (emplr_id = p_emplr_id AND YEAR = p_year AND qtr = p_qtr) 
            ORDER BY 
            DECODE(p_sort_expr, 'SSN', ssn,
                                    'Firstname' , firstname,
                                      'MiddleName', middlename,
                                      'LastName', lastname,
                                      'SeasonalIndicator', seasonalindicator,
                                      'QuarterlyEarnings', quarterlyearnings,
                                                          lastname)        DESC;       
      END IF;
  EXCEPTION
      WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND
      THEN
        NULL;
      WHEN OTHERS
      THEN
        -- Consider logging the error and then re-raise
        RAISE;
  END retrieve_cursor;

---

Is there some way to force the decode to sort numerically depending on which statement is being evaluated?

thanks in advance,
Mike

use to_char(to_number())for quarterlyearnings as in example


with a
as
(
Select TO_CHAR(to_number('1'), '9999999') rate from dual

union
Select TO_CHAR(to_number('300'), '999999') from dual
union
Select TO_CHAR(to_number('1300'), '999999') from dual
)
select * from a
order by rate