Final Friday Fix: April 2020 Challenge

On the final Friday of each month, we’re going to set an Excel / Power BI challenge for you to puzzle over so that you can get your “Excel / Power BI fix”. Challenge your office colleagues to see who can solve the puzzle quickest. There are no prizes at this stage: you’re playing for bragging rights only!

This month’s challenge is not the hardest one we’ve ever set – but it is a highly relevant one, since this issue comes up time and time again in the workplace.

Imagine you have four years’ worth of daily sales (not all sales are displayed!):

This month’s challenge is to prepare a monthly PivotTable summarising the sales monthly. Pretty simple? Well, yes, that precise task would be. However, there’s one minor complication to add: each month’s sales reporting period ends on the final Friday of the month (same dates as these challenges!). For example, Friday 24 April 2020 would be the final date of the April 2020 reporting period and Saturday 25 April would be the first day of the May 2020 reporting period.

Your solution (assuming you use our Excel starter file) should look similar to the following:

Sounds easy? Then why not have a go? We’ll publish one solution in Monday’s blog. Have a great weekend in the meantime!