It is a probably a good idea to become familiar with some basic and useful Excel functions. You are probably already familiar with Excel’s AutoSum feature, which applies a sum function automatically to a row or column that you select. One useful variation on the idea of sums is the SUMIF function.

You would use the SUMIF function if you wanted to add all the numbers in a column or row that met a certain condition.

In this worksheet, we may want to find the total losses for a 24 month period. A loss for the month is indicated with a negative number.

To find the total losses, you would select a cell (let’s say B27) and enter =SUMIF (B2:B25,”<0”) into the formula bar and press enter. This tells Excel to sum the numbers in cells B2 through B25 only if they are less than zero (<0). Notice that the condition “<0” is entered in the function inside quotation marks, and that the function’s arguments, (the range and the condition) are separated by a comma.

When you type the name of a function followed by an opening parenthesis in the formula bar, a small comment box will appear giving you a clue as to how to specify arguments for the function.

When you have to enter a cell range in the function, you can type it manually, or put your curser in the position where the range is to be typed, and select the desired range with your mouse.

Remember, a function requires an equal sign (=) before it just like a formula.

Another useful function is the average function. If you wanted to find the average of your monthly profits, you could select a cell (like B28) and enter =AVERAGE (B2:B25) in the formula bar. This will compute the average profit and display it in cell B28.

You can tell at a glance that the largest profit was 34000. It is easy to see this because there are only 25 rows of data. If there were 2500 rows of data, finding the maximum by visual inspection would be difficult. Excel provides a function to help with this kind of situation. If you select a cell, B29 for example, and enter the function =MAX (B2:B25), the maximum profit for the specified range will be displayed in the cell.

Now suppose you wanted to find the number of months with a profit that was greater or equal to 20,000. To do this, you could select a cell (B30) and enter =COUNTIF (B2:B25,”>=20000”) in the formula bar. The COUNTIF function will only count the data if the condition is satisfied. The number of entries that are greater than or equal to 20,000 will be displayed in the cell. Notice that the condition “>=20000” was entered into the formula in quotation marks.