Sumif or vlookup on multiple partial strings

Hi

Not sure what formula is required here so your help would be massively appreciated. I'm using 2007.

I've attached a small spreadsheet example of what's required.

I need to gather costs from a range of projects. In this example, I need to collect the Staff Costs into cell C20, from all of the projects codes in column A, which begin with TMOL.0001, i.e:

TMOL.0001.01
TMOL.0001.02
TMOL.0001.03
TMOL.0001.04

So I think I need a formula to look at the partial range of the string "TMOL.0001" only, but will pick up all 4 of the projects.

For single project codes, I'd use a sumif or vlookup which is fine for single look ups, but this is a multi look up, on a range of project codes containing some of the same string of characters.

I realise a simple SUM range would also work, but this is not practical as the solution will be used across multiple (hundreds of) projects and I need make it the process automated. Additional projects will also be added with the same strings so I'll need to be able to capture them in future too..

Help me, please




---------------------------------------------

Updated...

The solutions from Colin and Blake 7 below work perfectly, but...


I'm pulling in data from three separate (private) spreadsheets into one consolidated (public) spreadsheet, using the SUMIF formula

However the formulae do not work in the public file, unless the three private files are open.
Apparently I need to use SUMPRODUCT for this to work when the other spreadhsets are closed.

Please could someone recommend a SUMPRODUCT formula which will work with the attached, rather than SUMIF.

Many thanks.