Comparing Lists of Values in Excel using Array Formulas

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Last week, we had a home work on Calculating Donation Summaries using Excel Formulas. This is a good case where array formulas can help us. So today, we will learn how we can use Array Formulas to compare lists of values and calculate summaries. Towards the end of this post, you can see a video that explains the solution to Donation Summary Calculation problem.

Comparing List of Values – Different Scenarios

There are 2 scenarios when we compare lists of values.

  1. Comparing a list of values with a single value (or condition)
  2. Comparing a list of values against another list (array comparison)

Comparing a list of values with a single value (or condition):

This is the most common and easiest comparison. Examples of this are – count of all values > 20, sum of values between 5 and 23, count of employees in purchasing department etc.

We have built in formulas in Excel to help us do this easily.

Formula What it does?
COUNTIF Counts all the values in a range that meet a criteria.
Example: COUNTIF(A1:A10,”>10″)
Count of all values in A1:A10 more than 10 

Help

SUMIF Sums all the values in a range that meet a criteria
Example: SUMIF(A1:A10,”>10″,B1:B10)
Sum of all values in B1:B10 where corresponding value in A1:A10 is more than 10 

Help

COUNTIFS* Counts all the values in a range that meet multiple criterion
Example: COUNTIFS(employees, “a*”,departments, “Purchasing”)
Counts the number of employees in Purchasing department whose name starts with letter a. 

Help

SUMIFS* Sums all the values in a range that meet multiple criterion
Example: SUMIFS(salaries, employees, “a*”,departments, “Purchasing”)
Sums up the salary of employees in Purchasing department whose name starts with letter a. 

Help

SUMPRODUCT Gives the sum of product of various lists. This formulas is very robust and can be used to compare lists and check against multiple conditions
Example: SUMPRODUCT(salaries, departments=”Purchasing”, join_date>datevalue(“1-May-2009”),join_date<=datevalue(“1-May-2011”))
Sums up the salary of employees in Purchasing department who joined between 1-May-2009 and 1-May-2011. 

Help

AVERAGEIF* Average of all the values in a range that meet a criteria
Example: AVERAGEIF(A1:A10,”>10″,B1:B10)
Average of all values in B1:B10 where corresponding value in A1:A10 is more than 10
AVERAGEIFS* Average of all the values in a range that meet multiple criteria
Example: AVERAGEIFS(salaries, employees, “a*”,departments, “Purchasing”)
Average salary of employees in Purchasing department whose name starts with letter a.

* these formulas do not work in Excel 2003 or earlier versions.

Comparing a list of values with another list (array compare):

This is where it gets interesting. You have 2 lists of values, like in our last week’s problem. And you want to calculate some value, for eg. Sum of all donations where Amount Donated < Amount Pledged.
How do you go about this?

Well, this is where we use Array Formulas.

In the above case, assuming we have amount donated in lstGiven and amount pledged in lstPledged,

We can use the array formula =SUM((lstGiven)*(lstGiven<lstPledged)) to find the sum of all donations such that amount donated is less than amount pledged.
Note: You must press CTRL+SHIFT+Enter to get this formula work

How does this formula work?

  1. The formula checks for lstGiven < lstPledged and returns a bunch of TRUE, FALSE values.
  2. When you multiply this with lstGiven, Excel would convert TRUE, FALSE to 1 and 0 and then multiply.
  3. Since 0 multiplied by anything would 0, we end up with a bunch of donation values where donated amount is less than pledged amount.
  4. Once all the values are there, the SUM would just add them up.

More examples & Illustration:

Look at below image to understand how we can compare lists of values in Excel using Array formulas.

Array Formulas to Compare Lists in Excel - Examples

Solution to Donation Summary Calculation Problem:

I have made a video explaining how you can solve the last week’s homework. See it below or on our Youtube Channel.

Download the Excel Workbook for this.

Click here to download the Workbook with partial solution as shown in the video.

Click here to download the solution workbook and play with the formulas to learn more.

Share your tips on Array Formulas

Array formulas are quite powerful and robust. I use them all the time and love to learn more. So please share your tips and ideas using comments. Go!

Learn More about Excel Array Formulas:

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19 Responses to “Free Invoice Template using Excel – Download”

  1. Doug H says:

    Nice post! Invoicing for the small biz or solo entrepreneur is something I see a lot of interest in. Also there are great templates from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates

  2. Abhay says:

    This is awesome.

    I would need a little more. e.g. say I generate a Inv. # 1 with all the details. Once done I can click a button all the relevant details gets stored in some table. Further, when i generate a new invoice those details gets stored in same table but just below the previous invoice.

    Is their a way to do this?

  3. Hui... says:

    Daily dose of Excel held a competition in 2005 for this same topic
    It obtained 9 solutions which are shown:
    http://dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2005/10/27/invoice-app-the-results/

  4. parimal says:

    How can i removed Dollar Sign, As want to use this in india.
    Please reply.

  5. parimal says:

    Also if possible then can i use Indian Rupee Sign and how?

  6. Gaurang Mhatre says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Thanks for sharing this invoice template, Let me tell you this template will definitely help me since I got a process to handle where this invoice piece comes. Just a small doubt, can we store all the invoice details in PRODUCT & SERVICES sheet. So that whenever I select an invoice number from invoice sheet I can take print out and I can share it as well. Can we do that?? Since I will be dealing with this on monthly basis.
    It would be great if you can help me with this.

    Thanks in advance for your help!

    Regards,
    Gaurang Mhatre

  7. shrikant says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    I was thinking learning excel is quite tuff task but your blog proved me wrong. You made it very interesting. Thank you. Also the template you have provided for Invoice is very helpful to us.

  8. AKIN KARAMAN says:

    Thanks thanks thanks.. Very helpful. 🙂

  9. Trevor Gordon says:

    Hi i love the speadsheet but would like to ask how do i get it to add the description into the invoice as well

  10. Anuj says:

    Hi Randy, I tried to download one of your link "https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yvo0o2tgq9quhe/Medical_Massage_and_Salon_Application-Free.xlsm" However, i found the link unavailable. Can you please help me get the new link or can you please send this VBA file on my Email-ID.

  11. Kapil says:

    Hi, is there any chance that this can work with the "Products & Service" sheet outside of the Invoice sheet. I create multiple invoice files for the numerous clients. Updating the product sheet for each of them maybe a task. Hence, I want to create a MASTER FILE from which data can be picked up without having to insert new data in each of the invoice files.
    Possible? Or am I asking for the moon 😉

  12. Kadr Leyn says:

    Thank you so much for tutorial.
    This example can be reviewed for the example of the advanced invoice that made with excel userform :https://youtu.be/Qr-4of-38DI

  13. Trevor Gordon says:

    Good Day
    i love this template may i ask if it could be modified to have the following
    when you lookup a item code in the next column to the right it brings up the description then the quantity, unit cost, discount and then total otherwise i love the template

    Item Code Description Quantity Unit Cost Discount Total

  14. Denise Konopka says:

    When creating an Invoice template in Excel are you able to utilize the auto row height and wrap feature when the cell is a merged cell? I need to have a number of cells merged together to allow for enough space to type in the description of work performed (lets say cells A-D are merged in each row) however it seems that I am unable to utilize the auto format feature. To work around this I have to manually increase the row height after each entry. Is there a better solution for this? Thank you!

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