This is part 5 of 6 on Profit & Loss Reporting using Excel series, written by Yogesh
Data sheet structure for Preparing P&L using Pivot Tables
Preparing Pivot Table P&L using Data sheet
Adding Calculated Fields to Pivot Table P&L
Exploring Pivot Table P&L Reports
Quarterly and Half yearly Profit Loss Reports in Excel
Budget V/s Actual Profit Loss Report using Pivot Tables
This is continuation of our earlier post Exploring Profit Loss Pivot Reports.
We have learned how to change our P&L report on various data elements. We have seen how the P&L report can be changed with just few clicks.
In this post we will be learning some grouping tricks in PivotTables. We will cover grouping of dates, text fields and numeric fields. You will need to start with Monthly P&L report prepared in previous post.
Grouping Profit Loss Report based on Dates
- Right click on date field > Choose Group > Choose Quarters from dates grouping dialog box > click OK.
- Tutorial: Grouping Dates in Pivot Tables.
Once done your quarterly P&L is ready, you can still filter it on any other filed. Checkout screen cast for quarterly P&L prepared and filtered on City filed to make Quarterly P&L for Amritsar City.
Not only this, you can also drag grouped data to page area and Geography field to column area of PivotTable. Now you can filter it on Qtr1 to make Geography wise P&L for Qtr1.
[Click here to see how to do this]
This one is simple as it groups January to March period as Qtr1, April to June as Qtr2 and so on.
Grouping Dates based on Apr-Mar Financial Year
Most of the Indian companies follow April to March as Financial Year. They start with April to June as Qtr1 and finish with January to March as Qtr4. You will need different steps if you want make April to June as Qtr1 and January -March as Qtr4.
In our Data we have January 2009 to March 2009 period as Qtr 4 of 08-09 Financial Year. Grouping steps are as under
- Select January to March month columns > right click on selected columns > Choose Group.
- Rename Group1 as Q4.08-09
- Follow similar steps to Group April 2009 to June 2009 as Q1.09-10 and so on.
- [Click here to see how to do this]
- Drag the grouped field out of PivotTable in case you want to remove grouping.
The final report looks like this:
Many companies follow different Financial Year. In case your company follows May to April as Financial Year, you can select May June and July months and group them as Qtr1. You have the flexibility to select particular periods and group them. You can input name of the group as you want.
In similar way you can group 6 months to make half yearly Profit Loss Report in Excel.
Grouping Profit Loss Report Based on Text Fields
You can group data on text fields. In Geography wise P&L you can group South and East column to make P&L for South East.
You can select non consecutive columns :- Click on East column > Press Ctrl > Click on South column while you keep Ctrl key pressed. You will see that you have both the columns selected.
Select East and South Column > Right Click > Choose Group > Rename Group1 as South East.
Drag the grouped field out of PivotTable in case you want to remove grouping.
[Click here to see how this is done]
Grouping Profit Loss Report based on Numbers
You can also group data on numeric fields. We will make a PivotTable P&L grouping stores based on their size. Prepare P&L on store sizes by dropping store area field into column area of PivotTable.
Right Click on Store Area filed > Choose Group > Enter grouping parameters in Group dialog box > Click OK
You have the P&L for stores grouped based on their size.
Putting it all together – Creating a Custom Profit Loss Report Layout in Excel:
You can explore your PivotTable P&L in any combinations discussed in this post and our previous post.
So how about making South East Geography P&L for Q1 only of stores sized 4000 – 4999, like this?
It is just few clicks and your P&L will be ready , watch out screencast.
[this is a heavy screencast, so click thru if you want to watch it].
Dealing with “Cannot group that selection” error:
While grouping fields in PivotTable you may get a message saying “Cannot group that selection”. This happens due to blank date / number field or text in date / number field. You may have some blank rows in the data causing this problem. Some time you may have second copy of date field shown as Month2 or date2. This is duplicate field created in PivotTable which is already grouped. You will need to un-group this before grouping date filed again differently if required.
Download Excel file with all these example Pivot Reports:
Download Profit Loss Report Excel file and practice all these tricks on your own. [mirror download location]
What Next?
In the next part of this series, learn how to prepare budget vs. actual profit-loss reports.
Meanwhile, make sure you have read the first 4 parts of this series – Data sheet structure, Preparing P&L Pivot Table, Adding Calculated Fields and Exploring Profit Loss Report Pivot
Also check out the Excel Pivot Tables – Tutorial, Pivot Table Tricks, Grouping Dates in Pivot Reports articles to get more ideas.
Added by PHD:
- Say thanks if you like the idea and want to learn more.
- Please share your feedback and ideas for this series using comments. Yogesh and I will reply to your questions.
- Sign-up for PHD E-mail newsletter because you will get updates as new posts go online.
Yogesh is an accountant with 13 years of experience in India and abroad. His specialties are budgeting and costing, supplier accounting, negotiation of contracts, cost benefit analysis, MIS reporting, employees accounting. He writes about excel at http://www.yogeshguptaonline.com/
28 Responses to “Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6]”
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Part 3: Preparing a project time line [upcoming] Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management [...]
the templates are great (I bought the combo).
What I'm missing is a way to have the project gantt chart and reporting with the data per resource, in such a way that I can also show the occupation per resource on an extended gantt chart.
So with hours entered per person per project or sub-activity, to show a gantt chart of how many hours/days a person spent on which project (or plans to spend).
[...] from: Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6] 25 Jun 09 | [...]
Hi Chandoo,
Funny I have a post on the value of MS project lined up which I will post when the current monster project I'm working on finishes and I get some free time!
I'm not sure this would help with any of the projects I've worked on, closing down a to do list seems like more effort than it's worth, but it might be useful for some things. I guessing it doesn't, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?
keep up the good work!
Ross
@Ross.. Thanks for sharing your ideas... I think to do lists are a great way to keep up with project activities and ensure accountability from individual team members, when they are implemented right.
"I guessing it doesn’t, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?"
Your guess is right. When you change the calculation mode to "iterative", excel takes care of the nittygritties and retains older values in circular references in formulas.
[...] Project Management in Excel [New Series] - Gantt Charts | To Do Lists [...]
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
Hi Chandoo,
The template give me lot of convenience to monitor the thing to do. It simple. Thank You
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
[...] make sure you have read the first 4 parts of the series - Making gantt charts [project planning], team todo lists [project tracking], project time lines chart [reporting] and Timesheets and Resource Management using Excel. Also [...]
Chandoo,
I really do not see any befit to this function in Excel unless it was somehow tied into some other chart. That is say a scheduled activities % complete is based on the to-do list.
The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless.
@Brian... Once you have a todo list up and running, it is easy to get metrics out of it. I didnt propose it as it might look a bit too micro-management-ish.
I am able to understand what you meant by "The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless."
Can you explain?
"Chandoo"
What I mean is this. Lets say you have 10 task which are part of one activity/WBS that is in your schedule. One there are very few cases were many people would be assigned to complete this one scheduled activity with no direction being given who should what of the 10 task. It is poor management, and the task 90% of the time would not get done in a timely manner if say 4 people were responsible. Secondly, you are assuming all 10 task are independent of each other. You might need to do task 1 thru 3 before you can do task 4, and to do task 7 you might need to do 4 and 6. Thirdly, the time it would take to compile and then fill out the to-do-list even in limited applications is really not worth it.
I just see almost no applications why a team would need to inform others separate from the schedule that they have completed a task on a to-do list unless anyone of the 4 people could of completed that task.
My point is, there might be a few very limited applications for this type of list but this list would be worthless as a Project Management tool in every other case.
However, change this from a to-do-list to a document change log and it is perfect. Instead of to-do it is the documents name or summary of what changed in the document. The person is who edited the document, and the time stamp is when they checked it in. But I do not know why you would use excel when there is free software you can use commercially that is 10 times better that does document management.
I think using excel to do Project Management over a real Project Management application is a bad idea. Unless you are running a very small, simple project, the time and effort is a lot more to use excel compared to the cost of the Project Management software.
This comes back to my point, I love your site, however, just because you can do something in excel does not mean you should do it. To often the time it takes to use excel is wasted 10 times over from the cost of doing it in an application designed to for the specific application.
@Brian: The todo list mentioned here is meant to keep track of all the tasks for which detailed planning is not necessary but some sort of tracking is needed. These are not be confused with project activities (a la gantt chart).
I like your suggestion about using this as a document tracker. Pretty cool use.
Coming to your point about excel as a real project management tool, well, I have my views, but in a serious project environment, it would surely payoff to have a dedicated project management application.
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Time sheets and Resource [...]
Chandoo,
Wonder how the timestamp column will maintain its previous data. Both Today() and Now() functions will update as and when the next timestamp happens.
[...] Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Part2: Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Part3: Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Part4: Time sheets and [...]
I've combined this with the issue tracker since I like the automatic date stamp, but one thing I'm noticing is that I can't replicate the chart that goes along with the issue tracker because the cells that are referenced have the formula that inserts the time stamp instead of a the actual date value. All the dates of the last 30 days display 0 when they should have a value.
Is there a way around this?
I have edited the chart so that my team members can update the percentage completion of the assigned tasks. When the cell is updated, i would like the time stamp to update. How would I manipulate the formula to update whenever the drop-down list is changed?
[...] … ??? To Do List [...]
Excel is great however sometimes you need to get a better idea of what tasks each person on your team is working on at any given time. We've developed a web app that can do just that! Each person has a list of tasks, listed in the order they have to complete them.
HII,
I want to expand the database through excel where i am working on 11 cities as of now and i want to expand it upto 50 cities and hence forth the data related to it will also expand so i want to make it precise where i can get updates also that this work is required to be done at that particular day or date
Thanks for making all of this information available for free. I am currently using excel to track everything for the first time. I later plan to output our information here with a more visual presentation. Wish me luck!
Can some one point me out to some additional direction on the "Who Finished it?" column? Something more 'basic' for a newbie excel guy? lol I got everything else working on this tutorial but that column. I can't seem to recreate it and I know a lot of it is due to lack of knowledge with VB code. I'd like to recreate this column very much 🙁
Dear Chandoo,
Thanks for the team to do list, kindly let me know how to set the column who " finished it " from another work sheet
Hi Chandoo,
Unable to download it - can you please check the link and confirm.
Great inhisgt! That's the answer we've been looking for.
Hi Team,
I know u all are the best programmers in the world!!! that's I am here to rectify my issues. here is my question please ans me as soon as possible before 8-3-2017 its really urgent.
I have a project named the production tracker.
1) I require the user form which shows the names of the Associates which are linked to the different tracks. when the user is selected the particular track related details and dropdowns should appear.
2) I need to track the associate needs how much of the time to complete the particular task. with start stop and pause and resume timer.
3) It should display the daily count of the production and save the data to the another Excel file.
this production tracker should save all the data no matter how many people logs in into it.
Please help me for this it will be very appreciated.
you can directly email me on my mail ID: tusharkch694@gmail.com