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Lesson 1: SUM, AVERAGE and MAX on a cash ledger
Practice exercises for accountants, checked instantly in your browser.
Most accounting work starts with totals. =SUM(C2:C7) adds every number in the range C2 to C7. A range is written as first cell, colon, last cell. Point at the cells instead of typing the amounts: if a receipt changes, the total updates, and a reviewer can see where the number came from.
AVERAGE and MAX take the same kind of range. Watch the edges. A range that stops one row early, or that runs into the total row, gives a wrong answer that still looks reasonable.
Worked example:
Adds the four amounts in C2, C3, C4 and C5. Text cells such as a header are ignored by SUM.
=SUM(C2:C5)Adds the four amounts in C2, C3, C4 and C5. Text cells such as a header are ignored by SUM.
Exercises
Exercise 1
Maple Lane Bakery recorded six cash receipts. In C8, total the receipts.
Exercise 2
The total is already in C8. In C9, find the average receipt.
Exercise 3
In C10, return the largest single receipt.