Formula across columns with similar headings

Hi,

I am trying to understand/learn how to create a formula that checks a header for a certain value, identifies similar headings, then sums or computes a formula for values corresponding to those headers.

I have attached a workbook. Thanks!

try researching vlookup() or hlookup(). Or you could use Sumif() depending on what you need to compute.

If your more specific about your requirements I could give more help.

I am new to Vlookup but I think Sumif() might work.

The issue is that I need the average of columns with headers containing "Purch." However, I want the formula to check across all headers because it is very likely that I will not know the total number of instances of Purch_Day1- Purch_DayXXX.

Does that make more sense?

Can the Days only be up to 999? It makes a difference. There was a very similar question yesterday.

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...html?p=2716493