I’m working with a Google Sheets document where I keep track of my monthly expenses. I have one column that shows how much money I need to pay for each bill during every pay period. When I finish paying a bill, I put an X in the column right next to it so I can see which ones are done.
I need help creating a formula that will add up all the bills that don’t have an X yet. Basically, I want to see the total amount of money I still need to pay for the bills that are left. Does anyone know how to write a formula that can do this calculation automatically?
if you’re planning to expand your sheet later, =SUMIFS is a good choice. but for now, you can stick with =SUMIF(payment_status_column,“”,amount_column). just make sure there are no hidden spaces in your x column or it won’t work right.
SUMPRODUCT might work better for your setup. Try =SUMPRODUCT((B:B<>“X”)*A:A) where A is your amounts column and B is your payment status column. It multiplies each amount by 1 or 0 depending on whether there’s an X, then sums everything. I’ve found it more reliable than SUMIF with mixed data types or when you have different cases like x vs X. It handles those inconsistencies better. Plus it’s easier to modify later if you need more criteria - you won’t have to switch functions.
The SUMIF function is exactly what you need. Use =SUMIF(B:B, “”, A:A) where column A has your amounts and column B has the X marks. This adds up amounts in column A only when there’s no X in column B. I’ve been using this for my expenses for a couple years - it works great and updates automatically when you mark bills paid. Just watch out for extra spaces in cells since that’ll mess up the results. Test it on a few rows first to make sure it’s working right.