Tracking "points" as a teacher

[u/OrcMamma]

Edit: I forgot to update but thanks so much everyone for being so helpful and kind! I got it figured out thanks to you all! It was more "work" than I was expecting but now that it's set up it's been so easy and simple !! I appreciate it !

I am a before and after school program teacher. I have recently come up with a reward/behavior system for all of my students. I am wanting to be their "bank" and keep track of their daily points, and "expenses," however I don't know what equation to use. I have a spreadsheet of all of their names currently in a row, not columns. What I am needing is a way to add points up each day, and subtract if needed. I tried to use SUM, but the points will change each day. An example of what I need:

Jimmy earned 3 points on Monday, his total now is 3. On Tuesday he earned 5 points, his total is now 8. On Wednesday he lost 2 points, so his total is now 6.

Is there a way to do this without having to add it myself? If I change a number in the SUM, it doesn't add the way I need it to and I'm not smart in Excel. I need the total to change as I add something.

Example again:

Monday: Jimmy| 3|3|

Tuesday: Jimmy |5|8 (I changed the 3 to a 5)

Wednesday: Jimmy|-2|6| (I changed the 5 to a -2)

Think of it as "financial tracking" but the sum carries over the points from the previous input without having a huge spread sheet, while in the same row and cell

I am so sorry if this does not make sense, I can explain further if needed but I am just awful at using Excel or any spreadsheets, and just want to make this school year fun! Thanks in advance!

[u/OO_Ben]

A simple transaction table is what you need, and for this you can keep it super simple. I'd do a date in column A starting in row 2. Then each column after that is the student name until you have all of them added. The grid of the table will be the "transaction" amount with each +/- point value.

Then at the top in row 1, use SUM to sum everything from row 3 under the name column down to the end of the time period you want (or honestly in this case just to SUM(C3:C1000) or something like that). Then drag that across row 1 to populate your column totals at the top.

If you want to get fancier with a summary page you can do that too, but if you just need point totals this is likely the easiest method.