Once your receipts are in a spreadsheet, the next question is usually "how much did I spend this month?" Here are three ways to get monthly totals in Excel, from simplest to most flexible. The examples use a table like this:

A B C D
1 No. Date Store Total
2 1 2026-08-28 Corner Bakery 7.70
3 2 2026-09-03 Fresh Market 34.50
4 3 2026-09-10 Blue Cup Coffee 13.00

First, check that your dates are real dates

Monthly totals only work when the date column contains Excel dates, not text. Select a date cell and change its number format to "General". If it turns into a number like 46275, it's a real date. If it still shows 2026-09-10, it's text and formulas won't treat it as a date.

Files downloaded from the receipt tool already use date cells. If you pasted dates from somewhere else and they're text, select the column, use Data → Text to Columns, and set the column data format to "Date (YMD)".

Method 1: SUMIFS for a single month

If you only need one month's total, SUMIFS is the quickest. For September 2026:

=SUMIFS(D:D, B:B, ">="&DATE(2026,9,1), B:B, "<"&DATE(2026,10,1))
  • D:D is the column to add up.
  • B:B, ">="&DATE(2026,9,1) keeps dates on or after September 1.
  • B:B, "<"&DATE(2026,10,1) keeps dates before October 1.

Using "before October 1" rather than "on or before September 30" means nothing is missed even if a date also contains a time.

To switch months from a cell, put 2026-09-01 in F1 and use:

=SUMIFS(D:D, B:B, ">="&F1, B:B, "<"&EDATE(F1,1))

EDATE(F1,1) returns the date one month after F1.

Method 2: A year-month helper column

To see several months side by side, a helper column is easy to follow.

  1. Type Month in E1, enter =TEXT(B2,"yyyy-mm") in E2 and fill it down. You'll get text like 2026-09.
  2. Build a small summary table with months such as 2026-08 and 2026-09 in column G.
  3. In column H, enter =SUMIF(E:E, G2, D:D) and fill it down.

The helper formula has to be filled in for every new row. Select your data and press Ctrl+T to turn it into an Excel table, and formulas will extend automatically as you add rows.

Method 3: A PivotTable

For totals by month and category in any combination, a PivotTable is the most powerful option.

  1. Click any cell in your data and choose Insert → PivotTable.
  2. Drag Date into Rows and Total into Values.
  3. Right-click a date in the PivotTable, choose Group, then select Months and Years.

Depending on your Excel version, dates may be grouped into years, quarters and months automatically as soon as you add them to Rows. If Values shows "Count", change the value field settings to "Sum".

After adding more receipts to the source data, right-click the PivotTable and choose Refresh to update the totals.

In Google Sheets

SUMIFS, TEXT and SUMIF work the same way in Google Sheets. For a pivot table, choose Insert → Pivot table, add Date to Rows, then right-click a date and pick Create pivot date group → Year-Month.

Which one should you use?

You need Use
One month's total SUMIFS
Month-by-month totals in a column Helper column + SUMIF
Slicing by month and category PivotTable