Formula Inconsistent

[Roadking]

Windows 7 Professional
Excel 2013

Good afternoon,

Trying to understand why my formula works on certain words and not others. My target worksheet, DB_Activity Col - $D$2:$D$1000 consists of 36 “Expense Descriptions” and Col - $E$2:$E$1000 consist of the cost associated each Description. The following formula works fine with the below list with the exception of those with an **.
=SUMIF(DB_Activity!$D$2:$D$1000,"Other",DB_Activity!$E$2:$E$1000)

** Accounting Service
** Advertising
Auto Lease Insurance
Auto Lease Payment
Auto Maintenance
Bank Fees
Bank Supplies
Cell Phone
Computer Hardware
Computer Software
Corporate Fees
Credit Cards
Deposit
Entertainment
Fuel
Gifts
Internet/High Speed
Laundry/Dry Cleaning
Legal
** Licensing
Lodging
Loan
Office Equipment
Other
Parking
Personal Expenses
** Programming
Seminar's / Training
Service Contracts
Supplies
Taxes
Tolls
Travel
Unexpected Expenses
Web-Design
Web-Service

Any help greatly appreciated
John

 

[Aladin Akyurek]

Thank you Aladin, both formulas seem to work. However, I'm still baffled why my formula worked fine for some and not for others.

Since SumIfs is faster than an array-processing formula with SumProduct, you might want to try:

=SUMIFS(DB_Activity!$E$2:$E$1000,DB_Activity!$D$2:$D$1000,"*Advertising*)

if there is no danger of counfounding Advertising with look-alike values.

Of course, cleaning up the data from stray spaces is the best option.