Excel problem

I am working on an Excel file for work and thought that maybe you
could help me out with the formulas.  I initially thought that a
combination of an If / sum function would work but I am having a
problems.

He is the situation:

I have one Excel sheet with a couple of workbooks.

I have one workbook that has about 8 columns and 25 rows (the number
of row could change on any given day) one of the columns has different
plants listed (coded by a number).  What I want is to have Excel look
up the plant I tell it to, and then sum the cost savings (in a
different column) by plant.  I then want Excel to input that data in a
cell in workbook 2.

Every time we add a row and code it by plant then I want the sum
number in worksheet 2 to automatically update.

Any suggestions?

Excel problem

Jill,

Select the cell where you want the summation, and type:

=SUMIF(

then navigate to the column with the plant names and select the entire
column, then type

, "PlantName",

(replace PlantName with the name of interest) then navigate to the column
with the savings values and select that entire column, then type

)

and press Enter.

Your use of Workbook and worksheet was inconsistent, and so I can't give you
a sample formula easily.  You can also replace "PlantName" with a cell
reference, if you want to create a table or key value cell...

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP