Comparing different years sales/products

[Rainer Poindexter]

I'm trying to come up with a solution to this problem:
Sales for Customer XXX for 2002 include 1000 or more items
purchased. Sales for Customer XXX for 2003 include 1000 or
more items, but not necessarily the same items.

When I do a SORT by YEAR, then ITEM, then SUBTOTALS at
each change in ITEM, I get the proper answers, but how can
I line up the results side-by-side so that corresponding
items are on the same lines such as:
2002 SOLD 2003 SOLD Difference
ABC Widget 23 ABC Widget 24 1
BCD Widget 10 10
CDE Widget 14 -14
DGE Widget 9 DGE Widget 12 3

I can go through and add lines between non-matching items
manually, but that gets to be a drag when there may be
1000's of different items. Etc.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Rainer

 

[George Nicholson]

Rainer:

Create a Pivot Table and let Excel do the work for you.

If your data is in a list format with columns for (at least) YEAR, ITEM and
QTYSOLD, make a Pivot Table out of the list. Use ITEM as a RowField, YEAR
as a Column Field and (Sum Of) QTYSOLD as a Data Field.

In less than 30 seconds you can have a table that lists your items down the
left side and shows any 2002 sales side-by-side next to any 2003 sales.

Hope this helps,