Counting with Formulas

If you are working with a data table that has a limited number of categories by which you want a count, you can use the COUNTIF worksheet function to do your work. For instance, you may have a data table that has two columns. Column A could be names of customers, and Column B could be names of sales representatives. There are only half a dozen sales representatives, but scores of customers.

In Column E, list the names of your sales reps, one rep per row. (If you have only a half dozen sales reps, you should have only six rows filled out.) Begin in Row 2, since E1 will probably be used for the column name, such as "Sales Rep." The sales rep names should be spelled exactly as they appear in the data table.

In Column F, beside the first sales rep, enter the following formula:

=COUNTIF($A$2:$B$200,"="&$E2)

Make sure you replace $A$2:$B$200 with the actual range of your original data table. (You could use a named range, if desired.)

Copy this formula (cell F2) into the other five rows of Column F (cells F3:F7), right beside each sales rep's name.

That's it! The information in Column F represents the number of customers for each sales rep.