How do I make a custom formula for Excel?

[infamouswb]

I use excel for my checkbook register and I have a budget that "runs" beside
it to keep a monthly track of everything in the same worksheet. I want to
write a formula that would take, for instance, my gasoline purchases from the
checkbook, then place and continue to add up the monthly gasoline purchases
in the budget column. I know very little about formulas. Right now, I
manually add up all the rows that say Gas for the month and place them into
the budget line. I appreciate your assistance.

 

[Luke M]

There are a variety of ways to create cums for budgets, depending on how you
have your workbook setup.

From your example, I would suggest the SUMIF function. Excel's help can
provide more insight, but something like

=SUMIF(A:A,"Gas",B:B)
Would give you a sum of all numbers in the B column where you had the word
"Gas" in the A column.

I'd also suggest looking up in the help file about freezing cells (so you
can always see budget line).

 

[Don Guillett]

Modify to suit. Assumes valid dates in col A, categories like gas in col c
and the amounts in d
=SUMPRODUCT((MONTH(A7:A500)=ROW(A1))*(C7:C500="gas")*D7500)
I suggest using a credit card with a 1% or better rebate.

 

[Don Guillett]

You will want to make the range absolute before copying down
=SUMPRODUCT((MONTH($A$7:$A$500)=ROW(A1))*($C$7:$C$500="gas")*$D$7:$D$500)