How to use the SUMIFS function in Excel, and what is the purpose of the function?

1. Select the column with the value to add. Only one column must be selected.
2. The column containing the first criterion. Select the column where the first criterion is.
3. First criterion. Write the value of the first criterion.
4. [Optional] The column containing the second criterion. Select the column where is the second criterion.
5. [Optional] Second criterion. Write the value of the second criterion.

=SUMIFS(Range to add, Column with the first criteria, First criteria, Column with the second criteria, Second criteria, ....)

Purpose of the SUMIFS function in Excel

The SUMIFS function in Excel helps to sum values based on multiple criteria or conditions. It allows you to filter and add up only the values that meet the specified criteria, making it a powerful tool for data analysis and reporting.

Example: What are the sales of the Category Drink in Germany

In this example, we aim to calculate the sales for the Category 'Drink' in Germany. Note, the data are in a Table named tbl_Sales. This makes it easier to visualize the columns selected.

In other words, we want to do a sum with 2 criteria

• The first criterion, the Category
• The second criterion, the Country

In this situation, how do you write the SUMIFS function? It's easy

1. Write the function and open the parentheses
2. Select the column with the value to add (here, the column Total)
3. Then, select the Category column (the first criterion)
4. Just after, indicate the value of the criterion (here, Drink)

At this step, the writing is as follows

=SUMIFS(tbl_Sales[Total],tbl_Sales[Category],"Drink")

But the criterion of the country is missing. So, we must add another criterion to the SUMIFS function.

5. Select the Country column
6. And finally, write the value of the country (here, Germany)

=SUMIFS(tbl_Sales[Total],tbl_Sales[Category],"Drink",tbl_Sales[Country],"Germany")

What happens when the value of the country is changed?

Now, if we replace Germany with Australia, we will return the number of sales for the Drinks in Australia 😀👍

Use references instead of the name of the criteria

You can also use references in your SUMIFS function to use the content of cells. Here, we have extracted the country's name without duplicates using the UNIQUE function. Also, use the SORT function to order the country's name alphabetically.

And then, the SUMIFS function is

=SUMIFS(tbl_Sales[Total],tbl_Sales[Category],"Drink",tbl_Sales[Country],I3)

AND JUST LIKE THAT, you have to build a report to visualize all the results for all the countries 👍👏

Related articles

• COUNTIF, counts on a single criterion
• COUNTIFS, counts rows for many criteria
• How to use wildcards with COUNTIFS and SUMIFS
• Training with the SUMIF and SUMIFS functions
• GROUPBY vs SUMIF in Excel

Differences between the SUMIF and SUMIFS functions

For many people, the SUMIF and SUMIFS functions are similar; however, this is not entirely accurate.

• Both functions don't require the same number of criteria
  • The function SUMIF will require only 1 criterion
  • The function SUMIFS requires 1 to 256 criteria

• The writing of the functions is different
  • With SUMIF, the column to sum is necessarily the last argument
  • With SUMIFS, the column to sum is necessarily the first argument