# Filter a lookup formula by checking field against a static value?

**URL:** <https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555>\
**Category:** Technical Help\
**Tags:** formula\
**Created:** [June 17, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555 "2026-06-17T00:30:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ashleim](https://community.baserow.io/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashleim](https://community.baserow.io/u/ashleim)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555/1 "2026-06-17T00:30:35Z")

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### Are you using our SaaS platform ([Baserow.io](http://Baserow.io)) or self-hosting Baserow?

SaaS

### What are the exact steps to reproduce this issue?

I’m trying to create a financial dashboard based on a database of in/out transactions. I have that table set up fine. I then set up another summary table with each month in a column and then I’m trying to build formulas that will pull information from the transaction table that occurred during that month.

The transaction table has whether a line item is a debit or a credit as one of the fields. Each row is linked to the corresponding month using a formula based on the transaction date. On the summary table , I want to show the sum for debits in one column and sum for credits in another, so then I can see a net revenue.

Problem is, I can easily create a field that calculates the sum of all transactions in the corresponding month. But I can’t filter the array of transactions from the link field to only select rows marked as debit or marked as credit. I tried using the contains formula but I get an error that it won’t work on an array. (Ironically? I could easily do this in MySQL.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashleim](https://community.baserow.io/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashleim](https://community.baserow.io/u/ashleim)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 12:35am UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555/2 "2026-06-17T00:35:57Z")

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I will also add that I can easily do it when adding a filter to a grid view, but that doesn’t help me here.

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**Author:** ![olgatrykush](https://community.baserow.io/user_avatar/community.baserow.io/olgatrykush/32/219_2.png) [@olgatrykush](https://community.baserow.io/u/olgatrykush)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:18am UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555/3 "2026-06-18T10:18:23Z")

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@frederikdc could you please help with this request?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![frederikdc](https://community.baserow.io/user_avatar/community.baserow.io/frederikdc/32/2086_2.png) [@frederikdc](https://community.baserow.io/u/frederikdc)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/filter-a-lookup-formula-by-checking-field-against-a-static-value/12555/4 "2026-06-18T13:35:08Z")

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It depends on how real-time you want to have the data, but I would handle this with automations.

- Trigger: the automation is running daily
- Use the summary node:
  - set a filter for the month
  - set a filter for the transaction type (debit / credit)
  - Make the sum off all the transactions

- Update the record for the current month