Newbie question / Formula based on filtered records

Hello, I'm new to this and don't know code. I want to be able to query out a set of records based on date (eg. payments to a specific vendor within a particular year) and then calculate the total amount of only those filtered records. I've found information about how to display filtered records, but I don't see how to calculate that filtered total or how to run a report with this information. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thank you!