Excel 2007 : count number of transaction in a month when date is entered, also total

Hello,
I apologize in advance, this topic is over my head so I may over explain.

my spread sheet is organized by agent name, then each agent has 4 transactions per row, columns reading:
name, start date, DA# 1, Street 1, Close Date, Bonus $ 1, Posted 1, DA #2, street 2, .....and so in through the 4th DA

Under this table I would like to not only count how many DA's have posted each month, but also total the Bonus paid for that month.
I have columns labeled:

Month, (blank), # of closings, Total Bonus

My problem is I don't know how to tell the formula to count only the dates in January (or any month) when the actual dates are entered in the spreadsheet in the following format 01/01/10, and I need it to search multiple columns (ie, all 4 "posted" columns)

Additional problem... I also have no clue how to total the bonuses for a given month when the $amount is in one column and the date is is paid is in another.

I have searched through HELP and tried COUNTIF and COUNTIFS and tried to use a pivot table. I can't quite seem to get it.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Respectfully,