
Running totals are commonly used for keeping track of sales figures and monitoring the balance on a bank statement.
But how can you create one in Excel?
There are multiple methods, but let's look at two contrasting ones (as shown in the video).
A table called tblSales houses some sales data, and we want to return the running total of the Total (ยฃ) column.
Traditional Method
=๐๐๐ผ($๐ฑ$๐น:๐ฑ๐น)
The first cell in the Total (ยฃ) column is referenced inside SUM as part of an expanding range.
The left part is made absolute to prevent it from shifting as the formula is copied down using the fill handle.
On the other side of the colon, the ending reference is relative to ensure the row number increases incrementally.
Modern Method
=๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฝ(0,๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐[๐๐๐๐๐ (ยฃ)],
๐ป๐ฐ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ(๐,๐,๐+๐))
SCAN applies a custom LAMBDA to each value in an array and returns another containing the intermediate values created after scanning.
0 is the ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐_๐๐๐๐๐, whilst the Total (ยฃ) column is the ๐๐๐๐๐ข. The LAMBDA takes two parameters: accumulator (๐) and value (๐).
๐ starts at the ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐_๐๐๐๐๐ and iteratively totals up the figures, whilst ๐ contains the current one that gets added to ๐.
Remarks
The obvious upside of the newer method is only a single formula is required, whereas 10 are needed for the old approach.
Using fewer formulas is more efficient โ there's less to go wrong.
However, the downside is dynamic array formulas are incompatible with tables, meaning they can only live outside.
There are other table-compatible methods that use structured references, but they still require one formula per value.
Will spilled formulas become compatible with tables in the future?
Watch this space.
For more Excel tips and tricks like this, check out our Video Tutorials page.
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