Bottom Line:Learn about the Top 10 basic Excel formulas you have to know if you are an Excel beginner or if you want to refresh your Excel knowledge. With these basic functions you will be able to do a variety of basic calculations and analysis tasks.
Skill Level: Basic
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Why to learn these Basic Excel Functions and Formulas
Functions and Formulas are the backbone of your Excel skills. If you are comfortable in using just a few powerful functions and formulas you are already ahead of many people around you. That is a good reason to gain some knowledge about some basic functions and formulas you should know for your everyday tasks. And if you want to get more detailed knowledge or expand your knowledge to more advanced Excel functions and formulas, check out our well-structured and Filterable Database with all existing Excel Functions.
Info:Microsoft continuously updates and expands its native set of Excel formulas and functions. They constantly add new and improved functions like the powerful XLOOKUP function. These updates are only available in the latest version of Excel (included in Microsoft 365).
The Difference between an Excel Function and Formula
You may ask yourself, what is the difference between a function and a formula in Excel? Well, that is quite simple. A function is a piece of code designed to calculate certain values. A formula on the other hand can contain values, references to cells, and functions. So that means, if you are calculating something in Excel you use formulas and use functions within your formulas.
Now, let’s have a look at the ten most fundamental functions to create powerful formulas in Excel.
The Excel SUM function returns the sum of all inserted values. For the input, you can combine any sort of numerical values, e.g. numbers, cell references, ranges or arrays.
Syntax: SUM (number1, [number2], [number3], …)
AVERAGE Function
The Excel AVERAGE function returns the average of all inserted values.For the input, you can combine any sort of numerical values, e.g. numbers, cell references, ranges or arrays.
Syntax: AVERAGE (number1, [number2], [number3], …)
IF Function
The Excel IF function is the most essential function in Excel for logical tests. You can define the value that is returned by this function if the result of the logical test is TRUE and the value that is returned if the result is FALSE.
If you want to test more than one condition, you can simply nest multiple IF functions.
The Excel MIN function returns the smallest numeric value in a range of values. Accordingly, the Excel MAX function returns the biggest numeric value in a range of values. Both function only consider numeric values. Empty cells, logical or text values will be ignored.
Syntax:MIN (number1, [number2], …) | MAX (number1, [number2], …)
TRIM Function
The Excel TRIM function removes the leading and trailing spaces from a given text. Additionally, it removes unnecessary spaces between words.
The Excel CONCATENATE function joins two or more text items together.
Syntax:CONCATENATE (text1, [text2], …)
COUNT Function
The Excel COUNT function counts the number of cells containing numbers.
Syntax:COUNT (value1, [value2], …)
COUNTA Function
The Excel COUNTA function counts the number of cells containing numbers, text, logical values, error values, and empty text. Empty cells will be ignored.
Syntax:COUNTA (value1, [value2], …)
COUNTIF Function
The Excel COUNTIF function counts the number of cells meeting a specific criteria. It supports all sorts of logical operators and wildcards (*,?) forpartialmatching.
Syntax:COUNTIF (range, criteria)
SUMIF Function
The Excel SUMIF function returns the sum of all cells meeting a specific criteria.It supports all sorts of logical operators and wildcards (*,?) forpartialmatching. If the range for the criteria check and the sum range are not the same, the sum range can be provided as a third optional parameter.
Syntax:SUMIF (range, criteria, [sum_range])
Conclusion
Once you have these functions in your repertoire, you can easily handle any basic task in Excel. Applying and combining these functions allows you to create really powerful formulas for quick and valuable insights into any sort of data.
We recommend to take a look at our filterableFunctions Databasein our lookup knowledge section. There you are able to filter all existing Excel functions by Relevance, Category, and Minimum Required Office Version.
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The SUM function is the first must-know formula in Excel. It usually aggregates values from a selection of columns or rows from your selected range. Example: =SUM(B2:G2) – A simple selection that sums the values of a row.
If you aren't sure where to begin, start with creating basic calculations that add, subtract, multiply, and divide values. Then begin to learn some of the more commonly used functions. These include SUM, IF, VLOOKUP, COUNTIF, and CONCATENATE. Once you are comfortable writing formulas, you can do almost anything.
Simple formulas always start with an equal sign (=), followed by constants that are numeric values and calculation operators such as plus (+), minus (-), asterisk(*), or forward slash (/) signs.
Use VLOOKUP when you need to find things in a table or a range by row. For example, look up a price of an automotive part by the part number, or find an employee name based on their employee ID.
VLOOKUP. The VLOOKUP function is one of the most commonly used and recognizable functions in Excel. It will look for a value in a table and return information from another column relating to that value. It is great for combining data from different lists into one or comparing two lists for matching or missing items.
Statistical functions are a set of tools in Excel that allow you to perform various statistical calculations on data sets. Common statistical functions in Excel: Some of the most commonly used statistical functions in Excel include the AVERAGE function, MAX, MIN, SUM, COUNT, and STDEV.
How many functions are there in Microsoft Excel? There are over 450 functions in Microsoft Excel. They vary from simplistic to complex financial, statistical, engineering and database functions.
Introduction: My name is Kimberely Baumbach CPA, I am a gorgeous, bright, charming, encouraging, zealous, lively, good person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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