Excel - My Favourite Things - Excel Tables

8/3/2021

There is rarely a workbook I use that does not contain at least one Excel Table. What is an Excel Table? An Excel Table is a range of related cells grouped to make managing and analyzing much easier. An Excel Table provides a reference to a self-expanding range of cells with a header row and filtering. In addition, an Excel Table delivers the following advantages over using just a range of cells:

Excel Table name – a customizable name applied to the range of cells for easy reference and to include table cells and ranges within a formulas
Excel Table formatting – providing quick and easy formatting of the data range
Calculated columns – inputting a formula into a single cell will result in it being replicated to the other cells in the table column
Total Row – provides a variety of calculations for a table column, including sum, count, average, and so on.

To convert a range of related cells to an Excel Table, first make sure you have a header row (the first row containing the description of the column) and then with a cell in the range selected, click Format as Table on the Home tab.

Clicking the command shows the Table formats available. Select the one you would like to use. Now confirm the range chosen by Excel is correct and that it has identified your first row has headers.

The range of related cells is now an Excel Table. Note the Table Design tab at the end of the ribbon. This tab is only available when you have selected a cell within the Table. The tab provides access to the Excel Table tools, including the place to change the table name, which I recommend doing.

To demonstrate one of the significant advantages of Excel Tables, we will summarize the data using the sumifs function. The sumifs function sums a range of cells based on up to 127 different criteria.

=sumifs(sum_range, criteria_range1, criteria1,….)

For our example, we will summarize the sales data by region. The Table has been renamed to Sales, and the resulting formula is as follows.

The sum range in the formula is the table name plus the column header in square brackets sales[Amount]. When typing the formula, the autocomplete will show the table name in the list of options. Then after entering the opening “[“ the list of headers is displayed in the autocomplete for selection.

Excel Tables make it much quicker and easier to input formulas correctly.

If you would like to bring your Excel skills to a new level with Excel Tables, please check out our webinar K2’s Excel Tables – Database Technology Comes to Spreadsheets – On Demand (2 hours)

Enjoy Excel Tables within your workbooks.

Ward Blatch, CPA CA

C ZED

8/6/2021 03:05:19 pm

Tables are good, but they suffer from a few oddities and inconsistencies. Such as inserting rows doesn't always copy the formula cells. I find writing larger formulas with field names cumbersome but we can swatch back to cell references.
There many other nits, so when I come across them I just revert back to named ranges.

Comments are closed.

Authors

Ward Blatch
Ward provides consulting and training services as the Managing Director of K2E Canada Inc. He joined K2E Canada in 2005 and is responsible for the Canadian operations of this international consulting group, which provides professional development technology education for accountants across Canada and the US. Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia and can be reached at [email protected].

Tommy Stephens
Tommy is one of the shareholders in K2 Enterprises, affiliating with the Firm in 2003 and joining as a shareholder in 2017. At K2, Tommy focuses on creating and delivering content and is responsible for many of the Firm's management and marketing functions. Tommy resides in the metro Atlanta area. You may reach him at [email protected].

Randy Johnson
Randy is a nationally recognized educator, consultant, and writer with over 40 years experience in Strategic Technology Planning, Accounting Software Selection, Paperless, Systems and Network Integration, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning, Business Development and Management, Process Engineering and outsourced managed services. Randy can be reached at [email protected]

Bernie Smith
Bernie coaches businesses to develop meaningful KPIs and present their management information in the clearest possible way to support good decision making. As the owner of Made to Measure KPIs, he has worked with major organisations including HSBC, Airbus, UBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds and many more.

RSS Feed