Referencing multiple criteria to pull data

Hello,

I am having a problem getting a formula to work. I have a Master data list as as a stand alone file, configured as such (column headings)...Month, Group Name, Data. I originally set up the data in this structure to easily pull into a pivot table. Looks like:

Month Group Name Data
Jan Sales $434
Jan R&D $123
Feb Sales $321
Feb R&D $225


Now, I have another file, which I want to reference and select specific data based upon the first two columns (in this case it is month and Group Name). So, if I want the month of January and the Group Name of Sales in my new workbook, I want it to go to the other file and pull the data, which in this case is from the third column ($434). Therefore, I want a formula that say if it matches "Jan" and "Sales" pull $434.

Sounds easy enough, but I can not get it to work properly as the "match" statement is specific to a particular row and the Vlookup statment has problems if I wanted to pull Feb data. Or at least it seems to be the problem the way I am using the functins.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks@

Try to use this formula:

=SUMPRODUCT((Sheet1!A$1:A$4="Feb")*(Sheet1!B$1:B$4="Sales")*(Sheet1!C$1:C$4))

Thanks! It worked like a charm....only question I have is why? I am not grasping how this formula performs this function as it looks like it is suppose to sum a column vs. looking up a reference. Can you help explain the formula?


I like to understand the mechanics of how new formulas work.


At any rate...Thank you so much.