How to find if one cell is not equal to the cell to the left? - excel

Question

I am trying to create a VBA function that loops through each cell in a range, checking if it is equal or not to the cell to the left of it, and if it is a certain color. If it's not equal to the left cell and is that certain color, it adds a number in the same row but a different column to a running sum.
For whatever reason, the condition of the left cell being equal to the current cell is not working: it will still include cells that are the same value as the cell to the left. How do I fix this?
Sub TestFormulas()
Dim x As Long
x = SumRenewed(Range("E2:E9000"))
MsgBox (x)
End Sub
' This function checks cell color and adds it to a sum if it is a certain color.
' It also checks to see if the cell is the same as what's to the left of it. If it is the same, it gets omitted.
' This prevents unnecessary older irrelevant month from being included.
Function SumRenewed(rRng As Range)
Dim lngSum As Long
Dim intIndex As Integer
Dim lngSomething As Variant
For Each cl In rRng
intIndex = cl.Interior.ColorIndex
If cl <> Left(cl, 1) And cl.Interior.ColorIndex = 43 Then '43 is the color index for light green
lngSomething = CLng(Cells(cl.Row, 2))
MsgBox (lngSomething)
lngSum = WorksheetFunction.Sum(lngSomething, lngSum)
lngSomething = CVar(lngSomething)
End If
Next cl
SumRenewed = lngSum
End Function
I have tried numerous workarounds for offsets, assigning Left(cl, 1) to a variable and changing the data type, and Googled every which way I can think for 2.5 days.

Answer 1

Sum Up Column If Matching Criteria (Incl. ColorIndex)
In VBA
Sub TestFormulas()
Dim ws As Worksheet: Set ws = ActiveSheet ' improve!
Dim rg As Range
Set rg = ws.Range("E2", ws.Cells(ws.Rows.Count, "E").End(xlUp))
Dim MySum As Double
MySum = SumRenewed(rg, "D", "B", 43)
MsgBox MySum
End Sub
The Function
Function SumRenewed( _
ByVal SingleColumnRange As Range, _
ByVal CompareColumnID As Variant, _
ByVal SumColumnID As Variant, _
ByVal SingleColumnColorIndex As Long) _
As Double
Application.Volatile
Dim lrg As Range: Set lrg = SingleColumnRange.Columns(1)
Dim crg As Range: Set crg = lrg.EntireRow.Columns(CompareColumnID)
Dim srg As Range: Set srg = lrg.EntireRow.Columns(SumColumnID)
'Debug.Print lrg.Address, crg.Address, srg.Address
Dim lCell As Range ' Lookup cell
Dim r As Long ' Range Row
Dim lString As String ' Lookup String
Dim cString As String ' Compare String
Dim sValue As Variant ' Sum Value
Dim Total As Double ' Total Sum
For Each lCell In lrg.Cells
r = r + 1
lString = CStr(lCell.Value)
cString = CStr(crg.Cells(r).Value)
If StrComp(lString, cString, vbTextCompare) <> 0 Then ' not equal
If lCell.Interior.ColorIndex = SingleColumnColorIndex Then
sValue = srg.Cells(r).Value
'Debug.Print r, lString, cString, sValue
If VarType(sValue) = vbDouble Then ' is a number
Total = Total + sValue
End If
End If
End If
Next lCell
SumRenewed = Total
End Function
In Excel (not recommended)
Note that it will update on each calculation due to Application.Volatile. It will never update if the color has changed. Hence it is practically useless in Excel.
=SumRenewed(E2:E21,"D","B",43)