You set it up carefully. It still won't give you a total or a summary without a fight.
That's maddening, and it isn't you. Nearly everyone who builds a tracking sheet hits this, because nobody tells you the one rule that makes them work. It isn't a formula problem. It's structure, and structure is a fix rather than a rebuild.
The one rule every tracking sheet needs
A spreadsheet can do two things: store information, and calculate from it. Most tracking sheets quietly try to do both in the same space. That's what breaks them.
The rule is that a tracking sheet is a flat table. One header row at the top. One row per thing you're tracking: one job, one invoice, one client. Every column holds one type of information, whether that's a date, a name, a status or a dollar amount.
Nothing else goes inside the table. No merged cells, no summary rows between the data, no totals in the middle.
Follow that and you can filter, count and total in a few seconds. Break it and almost nothing works.
Five things that stop a tracking sheet from reporting
If your sheet isn't giving you answers, look for these first.
Merged cells. A merged heading that spans several columns looks clean. It blocks sorting and can confuse filter ranges. Unmerge it, and use a real header in every column.
One cell holding multiple values. A cell that says "John, Sarah" or "Xero, MYOB" can't be filtered or counted reliably. If a row has two people assigned, use two rows, or give each value its own column.
Dates stored as text. A column mixing "15/09/26," "Sep 15," and "15 September" reads fine to you. A spreadsheet can't sort or group text dates. Use one date format and let the app treat the column as a date. That single change fixes sorting, grouping and age calculations at once.
Summary rows inside the data. A row that says "TOTAL," or a coloured divider between months. They look organised. A formula or pivot table reading the full range counts them as data and hands you a wrong answer. Move every summary below the table, or onto its own sheet.
Status values that don't match. Excel treats "done," "Done" and "DONE" as the same value. But "done," "complete" and "finished" count as three statuses. Pick one word per status, use it every time, and the counts come out right.
How to get answers from a flat table
Once the table is clean and consistent, two tools do most of the work.
A filter shows only the rows you want. First switch it on with Data → Filter or Ctrl+Shift+L. Then use the filter icon in a header to choose what to show. Open jobs in September is a filter on status and a filter on month.
A pivot table answers "how many" and "how much." Insert one from the menu. Drag the column you want to count into the rows area. Drag the value column into the values area. In Excel, format the data as a Table and press Refresh after adding rows. Google Sheets pivots update on their own.
If you're in Excel and data lives across several files, one per month or one per project, Power Query can pull them together. It makes one flat table without copying and pasting. You clean the structure once and it stays current.
What "working" looks like
A sheet that works answers a question in a few clicks. How many open jobs this month. What's outstanding from this client. Which status has the most rows.
If you're still copying numbers into a summary by hand, the structure needs fixing. More columns and more formulas will not do it.
You didn't build it wrong. You built it to be read, then asked it to be counted.
Nothing is missing from the sheet. The answer is already sitting in there, waiting for a shape it can leave by.