Excel 2020: Another Way to Calculate Year-Over-Year

May 06, 2020 - by Bill Jelen

Another Way to Calculate Year-Over-Year. Photo credit: Denys Nevozhai at Unsplash.com.

Instead of creating a formula outside of the pivot table, you can do this inside the pivot table.

Start from the image with column D empty. Drag Revenue a second time to the Values area.

Look in the Columns section of the Pivot Table Fields panel. You will see a tile called Values that appears below Date. Drag that tile so it is below the Date field. Your pivot table should look like this:

This pivot table has customers down the left side. Across the top are four columns: Sum of Revenue for 2021, 2022. Then Sum of Revenue2 for 2021 and 2022.

Double-click the Sum of Revenue2 heading in D4 to display the Value Field Settings dialog. Click on the tab for Show Values As.

Change the drop-down menu to % Difference From. Change the Base Field to Date. Change the Base Item to (Previous Item). Type a better name than Sum of Revenue2 - perhaps % Change. Click OK.

In the Value Field Settings dialog, choose the second tab, called Show Values As. In the top drop-down menu, choose % Difference From. The Base Field should be Date. The Base Item should be (previous).

You will have a mostly blank column D (because the pivot table can't calculate a percentage change for the first year. Right-click the D and choose Hide.

Thanks to Tobias Ljung for this method.

Title Photo: Denys Nevozhai at Unsplash.com

This article is an excerpt from MrExcel 2020 - Seeing Excel Clearly.