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Did you know that you can use a pivot table to summarize portfolio holdings at any point in time? If you trade securities or work as an accountant this blog post is for you.

I am going to demonstrate how to sum portfolio holdings, here is a picture of the transactions table. The table contains dummy data.

I have added two columns to this table, Year and Month. This makes it possible to filter the pivot table by month and year.

Formula in cell J4:

Formula in cell K4:

Create an Excel Table

I highly recommend that you create an Excel Table, it makes life easier for you if you need to add more data to your table. This saves you time because you don't need to update the cell references, only perform a refresh the Pivot Table.

1. Select all cells you want to convert to an Excel Table.
2. Press CTRL + T to create an Excel Table, a dialog box is displayed.
   
3. Enable the checkbox if the Table has headers.
4. Click OK button.

Excel applies cell formatting to indicate that it is now an Excel Table, you can change the Table style if you want something more subtle.

Insert a Pivot Table

A Pivot Table allows you to quickly create totals based on conditions like items, dates, months, years and so on. It is one of the greatest features in Excel, in my opinion.

1. Click any cell in the Excel Table.
2. Go to tab "Insert" on the ribbon.
3. Click "Pivot Table" button.
   
4. The dialog box lets you choose the data source but the default Table is based on the cell you selected in step 1.
   You also have the option to decide where you want the Pivot Table located, a new worksheet or an existing worksheet and the location on an existing worksheet.
5. Click OK button to create the Pivot Table.

This image above shows the empty Pivot Table that we now need to configure.

How to set up the Pivot Table

Select any cell in the Pivot Table if you don't see the task pane on the right, see image above. This will open the task pane which is necessary in order to manipulate the Pivot Table.

Report filter

The report filter is going to allow you to use different date ranges like years and months which is very handy in this scenario where we want to consolidate data based on stock transactions.

1. Click and hold with left mouse button on "Year" field.
2. Drag to Report filter area.
3. Repeat steps with "Month" field.
   

The Pivot Table changes to this.

The Drop Down lists lets you quickly choose year and months to be included in the Pivot Table.

Row labels

The fields you drag to the row labels area will show up vertically in the Pivot Table.

1. Drag Date, Transaction and Item fields to Row labels area.
   
2. Right click on a date in the Pivot Table, see image below.
   
3. Click "Group..." on the menu.
   
4. Select "Months".
5. Click OK button to apply settings.

Values area

1. Drag Number to the Values area.
2. Click Number and click on Value field settings.
   
3. Select Sum, see image below.
   
4. Click OK button.
5. Drag Amount to Values area.
   

Remove Deposit from Transactions

1. Click Buy or Sell in the first column
2. Click the arrow next to Row Labels to display a menu.
   
3. Deselect the ceckbox next to Deposit.
4. Click OK button.

The result

Now you can examine all transactions summed month by month or if you prefer yearly.

How to sum holdings yearly

1. Right click on a month.
2. Click "Ungroup..."
3. Right click on a date.
4. Click Group..
5. Select Years.
6. Click OK button.

How to refresh a Pivot Table

You need to refresh the Pivot Table if you add more values to the Excel Table later on. This is easy to forget.