Extracting data from closed workbooks

I have 12 workbooks, one for each month. I have a 13th workbook in which I wish to record selected data from each month (which is then totalled for the year).
The monthly workbooks are all closed except the current working month. The problem I have is that in the 'yearly' workbook (when adding a new month) I must manually 'open' the new monthly workbook for each cell formula change or addition (about 30 times).
This also has to be executed even if a monthly workbook is actually 'open' and in current use - the formula includes the path with all subdirectories and drive letter. For the closed workbooks, that's necessary, but for the open workbook?
I seem to remember in the distant past, that there is a way around this (using 'Sumproduct'?) where once the formula is added no further action is required. The path is added when the monthly workbook is closed.
The main problem is that the open and in use workbook data is not updated in the 'yearly' workbook. I have to go through the above 'opening' procedure each time but with the addition of altering a formula in each cell before I can 'open' an already 'open' workbook.
Sorry for the lengthy description, but I do feel there must be an easier way to extract data from closed workbooks.

I do not need to do any calculations in the yearly sheet. This is just for a collection of existing data. All the calculations have been carried out in the monthly sheets.
In the yearly sheet I enter the path, the file name and the cell reference for a closed monthly sheet. Upon pressing 'enter', a screen pops up telling me to open the relevant sheet by clicking on the file name and then click 'OK'. This has to be done for every data cell in the yearly sheet.
If I the open the sheet to display on the screen, the path does not disappear. It remains as part of the formula in the yearly sheet.

However, If I start afresh with an already opened month sheet and just manually enter the file name and cell reference (no path) in the yearly sheet, it works fine. If I close the month sheet, the path appears. If I open the month sheet the path disappears. Which is as it should be.

I've also found that if I try a 'Find and Replace' to change all the formulae to a different month, say, AUG to JAN, the the pop-up sheet appears for each cell change and the full path is added even if the month sheet is open. But if I manually alter each cell, then it is OK.

Have you tried the "get data/from file" from the data tab?
load the data from a workbook, set the amount of time it pulls data from a workbook.
it will pull selected cells data from a closed or open workbook and input it into a field on a data sheet.
which you can then =cell to display the data wherever you'd like.
hope thats no to confusing?