Pat,

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails. Excel will
work fine, though a database program would be better. But the learning curve
is steep for the transition, and Excel will actually do a pretty good job.

First off: Do NOT use multiple sheets. Set up a database on a single
sheet - there will be room for 65,000 entries, so I doubt space will be a
limitation.

Use columns for all your data: Rep, items, prices, amounts, Sold to, etc.,
as well as columns for week, month, quarter, and year ( all of which can be
generated using formulas from the date value).

Then you will be able to use one of the most powerful features of Excel -
Pivot Tables. You will be able to quickly summarize your data any way that
you want (given the constraints of the data that you've entered). For
example, you could look at one rep (or all reps), one week, one month, one
school, one item, etc. etc. with just a few clicks.

See http://www.cpearson.com/excel/pivots.htm for a quick introduction to
pivot tables. There are other sources as well - simply playing around with
them will help, too.

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP

"Pat J Maine" <Pat J wrote in message
...
This past summer you all were wonderfully helpful with a calculation
problem
I was having. Now I am seeking help again. I need to know if I am using
the
best vehicle to track these stats for a client.

The client needs to track stats on five sales reps (potential of more reps
in the future). Data needs to be recorded on a number of items on a daily
basis for the entire school year with week end results, month end results,
quarter end results and year end results for each rep and also for all the
reps combined. Hope I am clear here. What I have done since Excel will
not
give me enough room for an entire calendar year is I have created a
workbook
with a worksheet for each quarter and a year end for each individual rep
plus
another set for the combined totals...for a whopping total of 25 sheets.
I
am currently looking at almost 3.5 meg on this workbook. As the school
year
turns over the dates need to be readjusted along with checking to make
sure
week end, month end, etc. all changes accordingly. Fine for someone that
knows how to work with Excel not for someone who doesn't. The other
wrinkle,
which I just found out about a month or so back, is that the person who
does
all of the data entry at the school uses a Mac whereas I use an IBM so we
have had some interesting translation issues...and I thought I was
creating
the problems!!

Anyway, is Excel the best tool to use? Should we be looking at something
else like a data base or statistical software? Any thoughts,
recommendations
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!

Pat