Help - Excel formulae/functions

[Jux]

I am trying to make a spreadsheet for my office, which is quite complicated in some ways, and I am stuck.

Column B is text, name.
Column F is Total cost.
Columns G, H, I etc are numeric containing various calculations (mainly nested IFs).

I need to identify a name in Column B, and then nest a load of IF calculations in each row that the name occurs in.

How do I identify the rows? What function do I use?

I do remember an awful time (which was one reason I left programming as far behind me as poss) going through a piece of COBOL vileness which had been written years before by no one could remember who, with about 30 lines of calculation which no one, but no one could work out what it was doing and why. It then printed a report which no one ever looked at. This was a tiny bit of a long programme, none of the variables were ever heard of again etc. No comments included to tell anyone what it was for.

Was I allowed to delete it, or at least comment it out? No. As the programme constantly crashed at this bit of code, it just meant that the larger programme couldn't be run, so the things that were needed from it didn't happen. All for 30 lines of undocumented code which no one understood or wanted or needed.

Thanks, I will come back for more Excel help!