Searching for first reference in column

[gmtaiv]

This may be a little convoluted, so I ask that you bear with me. I'm working on a worksheet to track budget expendiatures. I've divided it into columns of Date Ordered, Supply Category, Amount Ordered, Amount Approved, and Running Approved Total (by supply category).

So we can order multiple supply categories (1, 2, 3) on the same day. What I was looking to do was to automatically calculate the Running Approved Total so I'm looking for a formula that does the following things:

- Searches for the first instance of an order in this category
- Identifies if this is the first instance and, if so, just mirrors the Amount Approved for that day
- If NOT the first instance, searches for the last Running Approved Total for that category and adds today's amount approved to the running total.

If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. This has been bugging me for going on one week.

-G

[FDibbins]

Hi and welcome to the forum

you have 2 requirements which seem at odds with each other?

- Searches for the first instance of an order in this category
- Identifies if this is the first instance and, if so, just mirrors the Amount Approved for that day
- If NOT the first instance, searches for the last Running Approved Total for that category and adds today's amount approved to the running total.

You can probably do what you want with a vlookup or index/match, but it will be easier to offer more detailed suggestions if we could see what you are working with. I would suggest you upload a sample work book, (all sensitive data removed), showing what data you are working with, a few examples of what your expected outcome is, and how you arrived at that
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[gmtaiv]

I hope this helps. What I'm looking for is a statement that checks:

1- Is this the first instance this month to this supply category?
2- If it is not the first instance, add it to the running total for this supply category.

[FDibbins]

Im sorry to be a pain, but could you include a few sample answers...

upload a sample work book, (all sensitive data removed), showing what data you are working with, a few examples of what your expected outcome is, and how you arrived at that

[gmtaiv]

My apologies. I completely missed that. I've added comments and example values. I hope this suffices.

[Ace_XL]

In F3

=SUMIF($C$3:C3,C3,$E$3:E3)

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[FDibbins]

Thanks Ace

[gmtaiv]

Thank you so much. I was ready to tear my hair out.