SUMPRODUCT gives you two functions for the price of one in Excel Video 193. If you have two columns you want to multiply together and then get a total, you can always add a third column to multiply the first two columns and then sum the third column. If you need to see the results for each row, that method works fine. If you don’t need to see row by row results as you multiply the two columns you can save space on your worksheet by using SUMPRODUCT instead.
Note that SUMPRODUCT can multiply more than two columns at once. In Excel Video 193 we’ll do a two column and a three column example. When you use SUMPRODUCT, no matter how many columns you select, make sure the size of each range is the same.
Besides the example I’ll use, a common use for SUMPRODUCT is weighted averages. Simply give SUMPRODUCT the column to average and the column to weight, and Excel does the rest.
I hope you’re finding these videos helpful. Thanks for watching.
