Selective Summing

Excel contains a built-in function that allows you to easily specify which values should be summed from a column. This function, SUMIF, is used in the following manner:

=SUMIF(Testrange,Test,Sumrange)

In this usage, SUMIF uses three arguments. The first is the range of cells to be tested, the second is the test to use, and the third is the cells from which the sums are to be pulled. For instance, let's say that the cells in B2 through B27 contained days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.), and that cells C2 through C27 contained the gross sales generated on those days. If you wanted to only get a sum for the sales on Mondays, you could use the following formula, perhaps in cell C28:

=SUMIF(B2:B27,"Monday",C2:C27)

This examines B2 through B27 and checks if the cell contains the text "Monday." If it does, then the corresponding cell is selected from C2 through C27 and added to the sum.

If you wanted to quickly pull sales totals for different days, you could modify the above scenario just a bit. All you would need to do is place the day on which you want to sum in cell B28. Then, in cell C28 you would place the following formula:

=SUMIF(B2:B27,B28,C2:C27)

Now the test for SUMIF is taken from cell B28. Thus, if B28 contains "Monday," then the sum will reflect the total of Monday's sales. If it contains "Wednesday," then Wednesday's sales will be summed, and so forth.

The SUMIF function is useful when you have just one criterion to check. If, however, you have multiple criteria, then you can use the SUMIFS function. It is used in the following manner:

=SUMIFS(Sumrange,Testrange1,Test1,Testrange2,Test2)

Notice that in SUMIFS the range to be summed is the first parameter, as opposed to being the last one in SUMIF. This is then followed by pairs of test ranges and tests. The line above shows only two such pairs, but you can have up to 127 range/test pairs in SUMIFS. To expand on an example presented earlier, if you wanted to get a sum of all cells in C2:C27 in which either "Monday" or "Tuessday" was contained in the range B2:B27, then you could use the following:

=SUMIFS(C2:C27,B2:B27,"Monday",B2:B27,"Tuesday")

Note that the SUMIFS function was introduced in Excel 2010, so it is not available if you are using Excel 2007.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (7013) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Selective Summing.