help for an excel newbie

Hi all,

As a newbie, im trying to learn as fast as I can about fucntions in excel.

hwoever I am struggling with one at the moment & I dont really know what function I should use to achieve my end goal.

I have 3 workbooks - sheet1, sheet2 & sheet 3.

each workbook contains 2 columns - Date and Amount.

On a 4th workbook, I would like to total ALL amounts for a given month - so a table with Jan, Feb, Mar etc. This total will check the other 3 workbooks and add up all entries that relate to that month.

What should I use?

The second part, I would like to calculate a daily/profit or loss, so want to be able to add together all entries relating to say 5th January and get a total. Again, what function should I be using?

Thanks in anticipation!

gingertips,
One function to use is

=TEXT(A2, "mmm") or TEXT(A1, "mmm-yy")

This can create an additional column (say C:C), which will extract the
month portion. Use the second version if you also need to distinguish
between years. This function is for next to the data and will be used
by the summation functions.

For summation, assuming your months are in A:A use

=SUMIF(Sheet1!C:C, A2, Sheet1!B:B)

If you have them in different workbooks use clicking for the arguments
while editing the formula, this will properly enter the full
workbook/worksheet name in lieu of Sheet1 in the suggested formula.

HTH
Kostis Vezerides

Brilliant - thankyou!

Ive updated it as follows to make sure if a column is blank that it doesnt return Jan as the month:

=IF(A10="","",TEXT(A10,"mmm"))

Need to get myself more reading material, but thanks for your help!