Calculating a Sum for a Range of Dates

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 8, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


Forrest has an Excel worksheet in which he logs flight hours. There are two primary columns: Column A is the date of the flight and column B is the number of hours flown for that particular flight. There can be multiple flights per day, so multiple rows per day. Forrest is continually adding rows to the flight log and he needs a way to calculate the number of hours flown over the last X days, where X could be 183 (6 months) or 365 (12 months).

There are all sorts of ways you could approach this problem, but there are actually a couple of simple formulas you could use to get the desired results. If, for instance, you wanted to determine the number of hours flown in the past 183 days, you could use the following formula:

=SUMIF(A:A,">="&(TODAY()-183),B:B)

You can, of course, change the 183 in the formula to 365 to get the hours for the past year. Or, you could simply change 183 to a cell reference (such as E1) and then put the desired number of days into that cell. The SUMIF function includes in its "summing" only those values that match some criteria that you specify. In this case, the criteria is that the dates in column A must be greater than or equal to 183 days before today.

You could also use the SUMIFS function to create a formula that may be equally as useful. The SUMIFS function allows you to test multiple criteria in determining what is summed. Assume, for a moment, that you had a starting date in cell G1 and an ending date in cell G2. You could then use the following formula to determine the number of hours flown between those two dates:

=SUMIFS(B:B,A:A,">="&G1,A:A,"<="&G2)

The formula only sums values in column B if the dates in column A are greater than or equal to your starting date (cell G1) and less than or equal to your ending date (cell G2).

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10049) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing a List of Named Ranges

You already know that you can define names that apply to different ranges of cells and other elements such as formulas. ...

Discover More

Changing Months in a Workbook

When you copy a worksheet and then need to make changes to information in that worksheet (such as changing month names), ...

Discover More

Removing a Tile from the Start Screen

The Start screen is a busy place in Windows. If it is too busy for your tastes, you can easily remove any of the tiles it ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2013 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Days Left in the Year

Sometimes it is handy to know how many days are left in the current year. This tip provides a quick formula that ...

Discover More

Using a Two-Character Day of the Week in a Date Format

Excel provides quite a bit of flexibility in how you can format dates. Even so, some dates simply cannot be formatted ...

Discover More

End-of-Month Calculations

Don't want to use the EOMONTH function to figure out the end of a given month? Here are some other ideas for discovering ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is six minus 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.