is excel really what I should be using?

[Guest]

I'm creating a list of all the sales appointments that have been set for our
sales staff. The list will track which salesperson went on the appointment,
when and where the appointment took place, which product/s (floral
arrangements, interior plants and planters, exterior landscaping and holiday
display) were being marketed (and if possible other details about the
potential client's need for the products, like how many floral arrangements
are needed and whether it's for a commercial or a residential building lobby)
and the company & person our salesperson met with. I want to prepare monthly,
quarterly and annual reports that summarizes the data, displaying the total #
of appointments for each salesperson, then broken down by type of product
being marketed, or by industry our potential client is in, and even some
other features I haven't thought of yet. I'd also like to compare data from
one period to another, whether month to month, quarter to quarter or year to
year, in order to identify trends. I don't know if this is too much to expect
from excel, someone hinted that a database program like Act would be more
suited to my needs. Is Excel what I need to record and then sort all this
data? And if so, should it be set up as one long list that is continuously
added to, or can I save each two-week reporting period as seperate files and
still be able to aggregate all this data and sort by all the functions I've
described? Thanks for any and all pointers.

 

[Guest]

I would use Excel for the project you've described. I would put the entries
all in one long list. The AutoFilter, AdvancedFilter, SubTotals, and other
features will make filtering and sorting easy. Any things you might have to
do repeatedly can be done by hand initially, and eventually be done by
Macros.

hth
Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Jeff Stubing]

If you are using set lists of Vendors, set list of sales people, etc... You
could save yourself alot of time by using data validation. Type the list of
salespeople into a column within the same worksheet and hide the column. In
the working SALESMAN field, use data validation. Data validation will pull
up a drop down list within each cell, saving you the need to retype or copy
paste, and will prevent others from making typos when they enter data on the
sheet.