In the example shown, the formula in G5 is: The AVERAGEIFS function is designed to average ranges based on multiple criteria. In this case, we configure AVERAGEIFS to average durations by month using two criteria: (1) matching dates greater than or equal to the first day of the month, (2) matching dates less than or equal to the last day of the month. To bracket dates by month, we use a simple trick to make things easier: In column F, instead of typing month names (“Jan”, “Feb”, Mar", etc.) we add we add actual dates for the first of each month (1/1/2016, 2/1/2016, 3/1/2016, etc.),. Then, we use the custom date format (“mmm”) to display the month names. This makes it a lot easier to build the criteria we need for AVERAGEIFS using values in column F. To match dates greater than or equal to the first of the month, we use: To match dates less than or equal to the last day of the month, we use: We get the EOMONTH to return the last day of the same month by supplying zero for the months argument. Note: concatenation with an ampersand (&) is necessary when building criteria based on a cell reference.
Pivot Table solution
A pivot table is an excellent solution when you need to summarize or average data by year, month, quarter, and so on, because pivot tables provide controls for grouping dates automatically. For a side-by-side comparison of formulas vs. pivot tables, see this video: Why pivot tables.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
