If you have created a Pivot Table with individual dates as columns, you can right-click on the date field and choose group by month (or quarter, etc.). But it seems that you can only do that AFTER the Pivot Table has already been created. My problem is that I need to accomplish this BEFORE the Pivot Table is created

I have a database of about 5,000 records, all with individual dates for 2003. I want to create a Pivot Table grouped by month. However, because there are 365 days in a year, and because Excel only has 255 columns, I get a message telling me there is not enough room to create the Pivot Table. Consequently, I can't even get to the point where I can right-click on the date field to group by month because I can't create the Pivot Table to begin with

Is there some way of grouping by month (even if it's through VBA) prior to creating the Pivot Table so that it comes out already grouped by month

Many thanks
Paul