By Muhammad Anisur Rahman Accountancy resourcesHow to use the SUM formula in Excel20 Mar 2012 Microsoft Excel is a complex beast at the best of times, but is an essential for every budding accountant or finance professional. In the first of a series of posts, AAT student Muhammad Anisur Rahman shows you how to use the SUM formulaI will walk you through with the widely used powerful SUM formula in this blog. For the exercise example in this blog I have used Microsoft Excel 2010 which is very similar to Excel 2007. This example is also applicable in previous versions of Microsoft Excel (i.e. Excel 2003 and 2007).For the purpose of our example, create a table of data as per shown below.Click on cell A1 and type ‘Area Sales Data’Press Ctrl + B to change the title to boldNow enter the regional sales data as per table image belowStep 1 in using Excel’s SUM formula Make B4 the active cell and select the range B4:F7Right click on your mouse to select Format Cells…Step 2 in using Excel’s SUM formulaSelect Number under Category and then tick on Use 1000 Separator (,) Step 3 in using Excel’s SUM formula Now, we will add the SUM formula in cell F4 to calculate the total London sales amount.Select cell F4 and type the sum formula =SUM(B4:E4) and then hit Enter to calculate the total sales amount for London area.Step 4 in using Excel’s SUM formula Now we can see the total amount of £21,400.00 in cell F4.Step 5 in using Excel’s SUM formula To calculate the total sales amount for other areas, we will copy the formula from cell F4 to cell F5 for Brighton, cell F6 for Portsmouth and cell F7 for Epsom. I will demonstrate other ways to copy this formula in the video tutorial.Make F4 the active cell press Ctrl +C to copySelect the range F5:F7Step 6 in using Excel’s SUM formula Hit Enter key to paste the formula.Step 7 in using Excel’s SUM formula Now, we will calculate the total sales by monthType ‘Total sales’ in cell A8Step 8 in using Excel’s SUM formula Select range B4:B8 to add January total salesClick on AutoSum to calculate the January totalStep 9 in using Excel’s SUM formula You can also type the formula =SUM(B4:B7) in cell B8Step 10 in using Excel’s SUM formula As we did before, press Ctrl+C to copy the formula in cell B8 (January total)Select range C8:F8 and hit Enter to paste the total formulaStep 11 in using Excel’s SUM formula You can watch an online video demonstration of this example to help you if needed:In the next part of my blog I will demonstrate the logical IF statements. If you have any suggestions or question regarding this example, please feel free to contact me.If you would like to find out more about how Excel can make your life easier, then check out our post on essential Excel apps. Muhammad Anisur Rahman has qualified with AAT.