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Having mastered simple formulas and formatting techniques for budgeting, you are now ready to delve into more intricate functions that cater to specific inquiries about your budget. This video introduces complex functions designed to address nuanced questions and provide a deeper understanding of your financial data. The focus is on using functions to determine the amount of money allocated to a particular project category, enabling you to leverage the data in your spreadsheet to steer your project towards its intended goals.
When examining your budget, an abundance of red numbers signals potential resource inadequacy for completing the project as planned. However, pinpointing the specific project category causing the issue can be challenging. To precisely identify where your project might have exceeded its budget, you will calculate the actual cost per category. This involves adding a “By Category” heading to the summary section of your spreadsheet, listing the categories, and creating a new column labeled “Actual Cost Per Category.” Utilizing the SUMIF function, you can calculate the total expenses for each category on your budget. The function includes three parts: the cell range containing category names, the cell reference with the category name, and the sum range with values to be added. By understanding how to handle relative and absolute cell references, you ensure accurate calculations for each category, providing valuable insights into your budgetary allocation.