formulas - Excel: Count number of occurences by month -

i creating spreadsheet data on 1 sheet , metrics on other. need excel formula allow me total number of po's month.

on sheet 1 in cells a2:a50 have dates in format (4/5/13). on sheet 2 in cell e5 have april , want total number of po's created in f5.

how can this?

i have tried using =countif('2013'!$a$2:$a$50,'2013 metrics'!e5). have feeling since range in 4/5/13 format , criteria april won't work.

i able use formula total spend month: =sum(if(month('2013'!$a$2:$a$19)=4,'2013'!$d$2:$d$19,0)) not luck how many po's month.

use pivot table. can manually refresh pivot table's data source right-clicking on , clicking refresh. otherwise can set worksheet_change macro - or refresh button. pivot table tutorial here: http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/08/19/excel-pivot-tables-tutorial/

1) create month column date column (e.g. =text(b2,"mmm") )

2) create year column date column (e.g. =text(b2,"yyyy") )

3) add count column, "1" each value

4) create pivot table fields, count, month , year 5) drag year , month fields row labels. ensure year above month pivot table first groups year, month 6) drag count field values create count of count

there better tutorials i'm sure google/bing "pivot table tutorial".