This is blog already caters to a very niche group of people, but this post is probably for a niche of the niche…niche2. I’m kind of an Excel nerd. My primary language, the first tool I go to for any problem is Excel. When other people want to send out mass emails, they sign up for Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. I made a spreadsheet to do this.
I had kind of dismissed the SUMPRODUCT function as pretty much irrelevant and useless until one day while helping a church with a Narrative Budget. I was trying to allocate budget lines based on certain percentages in adjacent columns using my regular method when it hit me: Is this the job SUMPRODUCT was intended for? It worked beautifully so that’s why I’m sharing it with you. It saves a lot of time and reduces the risk of errors.
Useful Links
- Narrative Budget Tutorial: http://jctaccounting.com/2020/07/24/budgeting-does-your-budget-tell-the-story-of-your-church/
- Microsoft’s SUMPRODUCT instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sumproduct-function-16753e75-9f68-4874-94ac-4d2145a2fd2e
- SUMPRODUCT as SUMIFS: https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2016/08/24/excel-sumproduct-function-formula-examples/