Excel sumif Function

The SUMIF function is used to sum up the values of some specific cells of a column, the cells which meet certain criteria.

The syntax of SUMIF function is:

So, the SUMIF function has three main parts:

Range: It refers to range of cells that you want to evaluate to shortlist the cells that meet the given criteria.

Criteria: It refers to conditions that tell which cells are to be added. It can be a number or a text.

Sum _range: It provides the actual cells that are to be added. It is an optional argument. If we omit this part of the function the SUMIF function treats “range” as “sum_range” thus adds the cells of the range argument.

See the following example:

The company wants to know the total salary of the marketing department. In this case, by applying the SUMIF function the company can add the salaries of all employees of marketing department. See the image given below:

=sumif(C3:C12,”marketing”,D3:D12)

Range: C3:C12 is the range to be evaluated to shortlist the cells that belong to marketing department.

Criteria: “Marketing” is the criterion to evaluate the range or to find out the cells that are to be added.

Sum_range: D3:D12 is the sum_range that provides the actual values to be added based on the given criterion.