Seeking Spreadsheet Commands to Summarize Entries

[McBeardy]

Goal: Summarize data entered in one sheet to another

Note: I'm a beginner and not sure where to post this.

I have a budget sheet in which I write all expenses incurred over a series of 19 possible entries (food, rent, etc.). I have a summary sheet in which I want to have a summary of only a given days expenses and their type. It will appear like a calendar, but I don't want to see blank entries.

Example [vertical lines here as visual representing the the fields]: | Bills | $0 |

I need a command that will look in a column for entered data, then grab that number and place it in the field (in this example, it's the dollar value for the right side box). I think that will be easy, but what I think will be complicated is this: Once a number is pulled I need a command that recognizes the expense that number represents (in this case, "Bills") and then place that identifier into the left side box. Is there such a command? Or series of commands?

[Zizi64]

Example [vertical lines here as visual representing the the fields]: | Bills | $0 |

Please upload a real .ods dample file here. I can not recognise based on a text example if your "values" are numeric ones or they are pure strings. You can summarize only the numeric values.

[McBeardy]

I have attached an example sheet, as requested.

So, I want the limited spaces under Jan 1st to show only those expenses that actually happened. There are two columns for each day of the week. If I paid money for something I want it to show on that given day, in this case, Jan 1st, in the right side column under Wed, Jan 1st. On the let column I want it's type of expense. Like rent, or bills.

So, the challenge here is to find a formula that will pull the correct expense for the correct dollar amount in the left column showing what is was.

[robleyd]

If you want to summarise and group data, the usual tool is a Pivot Table also known as Data Pilot. See this link for more information.

If you are new to spreadsheets, you may find the following to be useful resources.

[Tutorial] Ten concepts that every Calc user should know
OpenOffice Spreadsheet Tutorial for Beginners with Examples
[Tutorial] Absolute, relative and mixed references

Attached is a quick and dirty sample to give you a start.