BeginnerMath Functions
Total a month of sales with SUM
Add up a column of daily sales figures to get the monthly total.
SUM
3 min10 points
SUM
Adds up the numbers in a range.
Syntax
SUM(number1, [number2], ...)
Math Functions.
A worked example
=SUM(C2:C8)
Returns 34,765
Adds every number in C2 through C8, ignoring any text or blank cells.
Where it goes wrong
Ranges that stop short of the data. =SUM(C2:C7) on eight rows silently drops the last one, and the total still looks plausible.
Practise SUM
Knowing what a function does and being able to write it from memory are different skills. These close the gap.