Managing Data with Microsoft® Excel

CASE STUDY: Overworking Functions

You've taken on The Sisyphus Corporation as a client to help it solve a data tracking problem. Sisyphus wants to track information about purchase orders (POs) that it has prepared for its vendors. As the vendors send invoices for payment, the Sisyphus staff enters information into an Excel workbook. The information includes data such as PO number, PO date, invoice number, invoice amount, invoice date, and so on.

Over time, Sisyphus acquires a considerable amount of information, some of which appears in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1. Not all records with the same PO number are grouped together; the sort is by column F, Date Invoice Received.

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NOTE

Although the vendors' names have been altered, the ...