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7 Ways to conditionally calculate sum of values in Excel.


Conditional SUM functions in Excel

         Excel offers different ways to accomplish the same task. This is especially evident in the case of using Excel functions, where we can simply choose the one that offers the best solution, or more realistically, the one that we are more comfortable using. As an example, let’s solve the following scenario: We are offering online Excel courses both: on our internal website, as well as on Udemy’s platform. Udemy charges us 50% fee on all course sales, and also offers promotional rates to increase our volume. As a result, we are selling the same content at different prices. Looking at Thanksgiving week sales performance, let’s calculate our total Net Sales for all of Udemy transactions (highlighted). Let’s use different Excel functions to perform calculation required.

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Using SUBTOTAL Excel function

SUBTOTAL Excel Function

         Let’s talk about benefits of using SUBTOTAL Excel function. This function offers too many features to be overlooked. On the surface, it appears that this function does nothing more than its name suggests: calculates a subtotal of your references: constants, individual cells, or ranges of cells. The reality is that this versatile function calculates 11 different subtotals, (think 11 functions in one): AVERAGE, COUNT, COUNTA, MAX, MIN, PRODUCT, STDEV, STDEVP, SUM, VAR, VARP. This function works similarly to your typical SUM or AVERAGE, where you need to reference your data range to be used in the calculation, however, you also need to specify function type. As you are typing the name of this function in your formula bar, Excel will automatically display the list of possible function types, or you can look up function types from the table below. The function’s syntax is very simple: = SUBTOTAL(FUNCTION_TYPE, RANGE)

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Top 10 Free resources to learn Microsoft Excel

Top 10 Free resources to learn Microsoft Excel

         Students often ask me to recommend best online Excel resources for further reference. After fighting the urge to LMGTFY them 🙂 , I suggest to utilize the largest search engine in the World, and trust Google to present the most relevant results for their query. (Searching for specific terms within relevant time frame would improve your search results dramatically.)

         In addition, the second largest search engine in the World can stream very helpful How-To videos on magnitude of topics. This means that one can search YouTube to learn not only how to unclog a toilet, but also how to create a PivotChart.

         If you are in a hurry, and don’t feel like watching a 10 minute video;SlideShare comes to the rescue, and offers a plethora of presentations, including Excel tutorials. Heck, you can browse through the SlideShare version of this post below.

         That being said, some of us feel safer when using credible and trusted sources for all of our Excel needs. I started compiling the list of useful resources before YouTube and Slideshare came to existence, and added others over time. I hope that this post will satisfy your thirst for Excel knowledge. Many of these sites include tutorials, blog entries, discussion forums and YouTube videos.

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