Change the tab that you are requesting data from to the same as a cell.

I am working with a work book that has a tab for each of the 12 months. At the end I have a total report that pulls data from each of those tabs. What I am looking to do is have excel look at a cell that content is "january" and have it go to the January tab and pull information from cell a1. Then if I go to the next column that has a cell with the content "February" it will go to the February tab and pull form A1 and so on.

sounds to me like you want the INDIRECT function