I have a situation where there are 4 columns of rates from different
suppliers. The suppliers have only submitted rates for the locations they
can do and these rates are listed by state. Those locations where they
cannot provide the service have a zero in their field for those locations.
The zeros have to remain to show that that they are zero and not just
forgotten.

What I need to do is to count the list of rates only for non-zero rates and
do this by state. I know I could autofilter the data and count from that
but I'm looking for something a little bit more sophisticated than that. The
countif and counta functions should be involved here and exactly what is the
difference between these two.

Any help appreciated.