I have 3 years worth of sales info. It looks like:

ITEM/DESCRIP/MERCH AMT/....../LAST PURCHASE DATE

I want to have a quick way of showing a comparision of what the customer no
longer buys, new items they buy and a increase or decrease chart for overall
total.

I want my finished product to look like:

1996 1997
ITEM/DESCRIP/............DATE ITEM/DESCRIP/.......DATE

1 XXXXX 8/01/96 BLANK IF THAT ITEM WAS NOT PURCHASED
2 XXXXXXXXX 8/03/96 2 XXXXXX 6/5/97

with my columns side by side and so on.

Any sugestions?
I have tried a pivot table, but continuosly get an error.