Calculating column totals in Airtable: Is there an Excel-like feature?

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1

Hey everyone,

I’m working on an Airtable project and I’ve hit a snag. Does anyone know if there’s a way to get running totals for columns, similar to what you can do in Excel?

Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:

Item    Running Total
5       5
10      15
3       18
7       25

I want each row to show the sum of all values above it, including itself. Is this possible in Airtable? If so, how can I set it up?

Any help would be awesome. Thanks in advance!

2

While the previous solutions are valid, I’d like to suggest another approach that might suit your needs better. You can achieve running totals by combining Airtable’s Rollup and Lookup fields. First, add an auto number field to generate row numbers for your records. Next, create a Lookup field that brings in the values from all records with row numbers up to the current record. Finally, use a Rollup field to sum these lookup values. Although this method requires a bit more initial setup, it generally offers improved performance and easier maintenance as your base grows.

3

hey lucask, i’ve run into this too. Oscar64’s solution works, but it can be slow with lots of data. another option is using the Scripting app to create a custom field. it’s more complex but way faster for big tables. lmk if u want more details on setting that up!

4

I’ve actually tackled this exact problem in Airtable before. While it’s not as straightforward as Excel, there’s definitely a way to achieve running totals. The key is to use a formula field with the ARRAYJOIN function combined with SUM.

Here’s the formula I used:

SUM(ARRAYJOIN(SLICE({Your_Number_Field}, 0, ROW_NUMBER())))

Replace {Your_Number_Field} with the name of your column containing the numbers.

This formula basically creates an array of all the values up to the current row, joins them together, and then sums them up. It’s a bit of a workaround, but it gets the job done.

One thing to note: this method can slow down your base if you’re dealing with a large number of records. In that case, you might want to consider using a script or integration for better performance.

Hope this helps you out! Let me know if you need any clarification on the formula.