Hi Charles--

Thanks for the tip. Sorting the rows as you say clearly enables you to
simplify the formula. I'll try it out.

By the way, I don't know if you remember me, but I purchased a copy of
FastExcel a couple years ago and gave you suggestions for improving the Users
Guide.

Keep up the good work.

Lawrence

"Charles Williams" wrote:

Hi Lawrence,

If you can sort the data by Division then Department then Vendor you can add
a faster formula than sumproduct:
assuming vendor is in column D and the data starts in column 2 then add a
Counter column in E2
=IF(D1=d2,0,1)
and copy down for the 15000 rows.
Then just add the counter column to the pivot: SUM will give you the answer.

regards
Charles Williams
Decision Models