Let’s say you manage a fund or charity. You get money from various places and you use that money for various reasons. How do you tell the story of source vs. uses of funds? In this post, let’s review 14 charting options.
Source vs. Use of funds – Sample Data for this problem
Let’s say you have 3 sources and 3 uses, as shown below. For all these charts, we will use the same data, but may add some simple calculations or change the layout to get the charts.
As I made quite a few alternatives, I broke them in to two kinds of charts.
- Simple charts: These are easy to make, easy to read and scale well when you have lots of sources & uses.
- Exotic charts: These are somewhat tricky but fun to make, look exotic and raise a few eyebrows in the meeting room.
Simple Charts for Source vs. Use of funds
#1 – Waterfall chart
Waterfall chart is perfect for this kind of data. Simply layout your data like below (you can use SUBTOTAL or SUM formulas to calculate intermediate totals), select everything and insert waterfall chart from Insert ribbon. Mark total columns “as total” and you are done.
#2 – Stacked column chart
Set up your data in two columns as shown aside and create stacked column chart. Format to your taste. Simple and effective.
#3 Couple of Pies
Use the same data format as “stacked column chart” but instead make two pie charts. If you have just a few options for sources and uses, Pie charts work great.
#4 – Mirrored bar chart
As you can see, sources and uses are two sides of the same coin, so we can go with a mirror metaphor like above. To create this chart, you need data in the format shown below. Once you have the data, just select it and insert a stacked bar chart. Format as you see fit and the mirror is ready.
#5 – Dollar background – stacked chart
This is same is option #2, but with a fancy dollar bill for plot area background and gap width for columns set to 0. When you make the fill colors for series semi-transparent, you get this effect.
#6 – Touching stacked bars…
Again, same format of data as “stacked chart #2”, but we make a stacked bar chart and then set gap width to 0 to get this effect. This works very well and makes it easy to compare.
#7 – Donuts
While I am not a fan of donuts or pies, they work great when you have small set of data like this. Set up your data like #2 stacked chart and instead make donut chart. Format and you get this.
#8 – Half a pie each…
This works very well if source total = use total. Just set up your data like this and make a normal pie chart. Format sources and uses in two colors like above and draw a line in the middle. You get above chart.
#9 – Sunburst chart
This is essentially similar to donuts (option #7) but we need data in a different structure (see aside). Sunburst charts work very well even when you have lots of items in each category or even sub-categories. Keep in mind though, sunburst charts are new to Excel 2016, so if you have older versions, you can’t get these.
#10 – Treemap chart
Same as sunburst charts, treemaps are a new chart in Excel 2016. They can work well when you have many items or even sub-categories.
Exotic charts for Source vs. Use of funds
#11 – Hourglass chart
The idea is Sources flow to Uses. So we make an hour glass shape with regular bar chart (with invisible series on left to push the items to center).
To create this, set up your data like below.
Now, simply create a regular stacked bar chart. Select Gap series, make it invisible (fill color > none), format source and uses series. You are done.
#12 – Butterfly chart
Sources and Uses as wings of butterfly. This is really an area chart, with an invisible series at the bottom to create the effect of butterfly wings. To make this chart, set up your data like below:
Now, Make an area chart. Move gap series to top (so it is really at the bottom when laid out), then make it invisible. See this GIF to understand how it all works to make the butterfly wings.
#13 – Waterfall lines
Instead of waterfall bars, we make this with lines. Unfortunately, this step chart is the trickiest one to create as we use XY plot with error bars to get the steps. The technique has too many steps, so I am not explaining them here, but if you are curious, see this tutorial.
#14 – Cube chart
Here the idea is Sources and Uses are two faces of a cube. Again, this is actually an area chart, but invisible gap series at bottom and a top layer. To make this, set up your data like below (remember, the horizontal axis has to be dates, else you will not get Cube effect).
To be honest, I am not a fan of cube chart, as it is tricky to label things and won’t work for more items. But I wanted to give it a try.
Download all the 14 charts…
I made a simple workbook with all 14 examples. Click here to download the file and play with it to learn. May be try making something on your own and post that in the comments section?
What is your favorite chart?
My favs are #1 (waterfall), #12 (butterly chart) and #8 (half pies).
What about you? What is your favorite chart among all these? Post in comments. Also feel free to make your own and share them so we can all learn.
Like charts & visual story telling? Check out these amazing examples
If you are in to data analytics & visualizations, you are going to love Chandoo.org. We got tons of examples and tips. Start with these…
This post is inspired by a forum question from Yaswanth92.
30 Responses to “Great News: Chandoo becomes MVP”
Congratulations! It's well deserved. 🙂
This is amazing. Hearty congratulations and a rocking new year ahead!!!
Congrats! I have learnt alot from your site... and the most important is learning how to achieve the most with the simplest concepts.
Thanks for the excel calendar. Is it possible to get a simple big fonted calendar printable on an A4 size paper without any distracive notes or visuals? BTW, I have already signed up for your newsletter. With warm regards and
Gratefully yours
50+ year old CHarish.
Hey Chandoo,
Great to hear that. Congratulations! The best new year gift, I would say. Keep it up, u've been doing extraordinary work for the excel users community.
Regards,
Pankaj Verma
Congrats dude... fantastic news!
congratulations! your site is great, this is well deserved
Rich
I recently found your site, I visit many. The tips that you provide are in the top 1% of all the sites I visit. Keep on Excelling.
Arnold
South Africa
Congratulations, Chandoo! That's a great way to start the year and make the PHD even better.
Congratulations, Chandoo.
Your site is one of most useful on the net. Happy new year and lot of ideas you will present for us.
Congrats.
Just read your name in an email from Abhishek. Well deserved.
Congratulations, and Happy New Year.
Greetings from Rio de Janeiro my friend! You trully deserve it!
Nive way to start 2009! Keep up the good work!
FC
That was quite forseeable , so you have now really got your PhD in excel.
Anyways Chandoo you have made excel a real Fun doo
I will like you to write some more on INDEX and MATCH function in near future.
@Hey Chandoo ! Congrates....
Ab to treat mangta hai !
Well deserved Chandoo!!
Congrat's!! Very well deserved 🙂
i always browsed mr.excel and used to see MVP writtne below names of people who used to solve queries in excel forum there......i just used to admire as to what they have special in them that they are MVP......
but now i got my answer...............u deserve it man..........
@All: thanks everyone 🙂
Congratulations Chandoo, nice job!
Chandoo,
A well deserved recognition and a good start to the New Year. Continue your good work.
Subbu
Many Congratulations.
You deserve a Ph.D. 🙂
congrats.....
Congrats dude. Rock on!
[...] charting community in 2007 and has been growing strongly ever since. In year 2009, I have received the MVP award from Microsoft. Just few days back I have become a dad [...]
Respected sir,
I am impressed!.... Good job done.. Keep it up...
Sir, How to be a MVP certified person. What level of knowledge is required for it? send me links if possible.
Please reply...
Regards,
Dipak Khalasi.
Dipak -
The first thing you need to cultivate is the ability to search the web effectively. You could start by Googling "Microsoft MVP".
[...] boy and girl which has been made hectic and incredibly fun ever since to their life.He has been awarded MVP status in 2009 by Microsoft(and renewed in 2010,2011 & 2012).His MVP profile is here.If you want to contact him direct then [...]
Congrats Chandoo!!
[…] Chandoo becomes MVP […]