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.
Practise SUM2 interactive exercises, free, no account needed
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.
What the exercises catch
Each of these is a wrong turn the practice exercises recognise and name. They are the misconceptions, not the answers.
- That is the right number, but it is typed in rather than calculated. If Thursday's figure is corrected tomorrow, your total will silently be wrong. Use a formula that reads the column.Total a month of sales with SUM
- Correct on this row by coincidence, but with nothing anchored the whole range slides down and every row just repeats its own sales figure. The start of the range has to stay put.Build a running total that fills down
- Your range stops one row short, so Sunday is missing from the total. Check where the data actually ends.Total a month of sales with SUM
Practise SUM
Knowing what a function does and being able to write it from memory are different skills. These close the gap.