Trying to retain data in one part of my worksheet which comes from formula in another part

[Murray Field]

I have a worksheet setup to record household expenses and income (on a daily basis) and provide reporting at the same time. In part of the worksheet I record the daily expenses and income with totals at the bottom. I have very basic formula which adds up the daily amounts and gives a total for the month at the bottom. I then reference these cells in the part of the worksheet where I record the monthly totals. This works fine but when I come to the next month (which in my case will be February) I strike a problem. If I delete all the data for January with the idea of re-populating the worksheet with February's data then all the figures will disappear from the January month in the reporting section of the worksheet. The only way I can see around this, at the moment is to create another month section and reference those totals in the February section of the reporting part of the worksheet. You can imagine how big the worksheet would get if I had to do this for the whole 12 months of the year!

I have done the google thing and just gotten completely confused! I know what I am wanting to be done can be done but I don't have the knowledge, skill or time (for that matter) to do it without help.

Just in case any of you are wondering why don't I just get a personal accounting package off the web? Well, I have tried almost all of them and while some are very good I still keep coming back to Excel which I really love!!!

I have created a "view link" to my spreadsheet (I hope this works, this is the first time I've ever done this?) so you can see what I am trying to do (this may help in view of my above explanation may sound like rubbish) but I sure there is a way to do what I want it to do (cross fingers)...

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page...GhB9O8gwm1Nxa8

 

[sheetspread]

This would be so much easier in what's conventionally known as a normalized database structure, like:

Excel 2010
	A	B	C	D
1	Date	Account	Group	Amount
2	1/9/2016	Salary	Income	10000
3	1/14/2016	Taxi	Expense	-20
4	2/22/2016	Health	Expense	-100
Sheet1

You can then present the data in the two dimensional format you currently have or any other way.

 

[Murray Field]

This would be so much easier in what's conventionally known as a normalized database structure, like:

Excel 2010

	A	B	C	D
Date	Account	Group	Amount
Salary	Income
Taxi	Expense
Health	Expense

<colgroup><col style="width: 25pxpx"><col><col><col><col></colgroup><thead>
</thead><tbody>
[TD="align: center"]1[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]2[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1/9/2016[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]10000[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]3[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1/14/2016[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]-20[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]4[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2/22/2016[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]-100[/TD]

</tbody>

Sheet1​

You can then present the data in the two dimensional format you currently have or any other way.

Thank you for your response.

I will see what information I can find on "normalised database structure" as you suggest.

Murray

 

[sheetspread]

Ok, and here's a longer example:

Excel 2010
	A	B	C	D
1	Date	Account	Group	Amount
2	1/9/2016	Salary	Income	10000
3	1/14/2016	Taxi	Expense	-20
4	2/22/2016	Health	Expense	-100
5	9/2/2016	Health	Expense	-949
6	3/10/2016	Vehicles	Expense	-596
7	3/5/2016	Vacation	Expense	-989
8	2/29/2016	Clothing	Expense	-864
9	2/27/2016	Website	Expense	-940
10	5/30/2016	Health	Expense	-1793
11	1/18/2016	Health	Expense	-1170
12	8/2/2016	Taxi	Expense	-1576
13	9/22/2016	Salary	Income	10000
14	6/10/2016	Vehicles	Expense	-347
15	3/12/2016	Clothing	Expense	-1207
16	4/11/2016	Clothing	Expense	-993
17	9/7/2016	Website	Expense	-34
18	12/21/2016	Salary	Income	10000
19	2/5/2016	Vacation	Expense	-997
20	5/21/2016	Vacation	Expense	-235
21	8/24/2016	Health	Expense	-274
22	12/29/2016	Salary	Income	10000
23	4/4/2016	Taxi	Expense	-916
24	7/22/2016	Salary	Income	10000
25	5/4/2016	Salary	Income	10000
Sheet1

Insert-Pivot Table-(drag Date into column label,Group and Account into row label, Amount into value labels, then right click on the first date, 1/9/2016, group, months, ok):

Excel 2010
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L
3	Sum of Amount	Column Labels
4	Row Labels	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Dec	Grand Total
5	Expense
6	Clothing		-864	-1207	-993							-3064
7	Health	-1170	-100			-1793			-274	-949		-4286
8	Taxi	-20			-916				-1576			-2512
9	Vacation		-997	-989		-235						-2221
10	Vehicles			-596			-347					-943
11	Website		-940							-34		-974
12	Expense Total	-1190	-2901	-2792	-1909	-2028	-347		-1850	-983		-14000
13	Income
14	Salary	10000				10000		10000		10000	20000	60000
15	Income Total	10000				10000		10000		10000	20000	60000
16	Grand Total	8810	-2901	-2792	-1909	7972	-347	10000	-1850	9017	20000	46000
Sheet2

(I also moved the subtotals to the bottom of each group through the subtotals section of the design menu)

There are drawbacks as well, such as having to set a custom sort order (Expense comes alphabetically before income and revenue), but you'll find this much more efficient overall. You can filter dates and other fields in place or to additional worksheets.

 

[Murray Field]

Wow, thanks, I'll (hmmm) study this...

 

[Murray Field]

I think I've nailed the first bit, now for the Pivot Table!

 

[sheetspread]

Nice, and another word about the sorting, if you right click on Expense in the above example, sort, you can go Z-A to get income first, custom obviously isn't required for that.

 

[Murray Field]

I've got the Pivot Table up and running. Now I need to be able to save the totals on a month by month basis and have the results appear in a cashflow type worksheet. I also need to add %s. I don't know if you have yet had a look at my original worksheet on onedrive but it you look at it you will see what I am trying to do.

 

[sheetspread]

You can either create another pivot table filtering the desired date or group by month and year to compare sideways. For percentages, go to the pivot table tools options tab and choose from "show values as".

 

[Murray Field]

OK, thanks!