What Method Should You Use to Analyze Your Sales Data?

Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access provide you with complete flexibility to analyze and summarize data. Regardless of where your data originates, you can use all of the powerful features of both applications to create the summaries, reports, and charts you need.

The next few topics show you how to proceed, depending on where your data is stored initially. Topics in other parts of this book and in Help show you other analysis methods that you can apply to data, sales or otherwise.

For Data Stored in Microsoft Access

Use the following table to decide which topics to read for more information.

If you want to	Do this
Create a detailed report that organizes, subtotals, and summarizes your data	Run the Microsoft Access Report Wizard. For more information, see Create a Price List.
Create a chart that summarizes your data graphically	Run the Microsoft Access Chart Wizard. See Create a Chart from a Database.
Create a Microsoft Excel summary table that lets you change your view of the data dynamically	Create a Microsoft Excel PivotTable. For more information, see Create a Sales Summary from a Microsoft Access Database.
Organize, subtotal, and summarize the data by using Microsoft Excel	In Microsoft Access, click Office Links (Tools menu), and then click Analyze It With MS Excel to export a snapshot of the data to a Microsoft Excel worksheet. Then see Create a Detailed Sales Report. When your data changes, you must repeat these steps for updated results.

For Data Stored in Microsoft Excel

Use the following table to decide which topics to read for more information.

If you want to	Do this
Create a detailed report that organizes, subtotals, and summarizes your data	Add automatic subtotals to your data. For more information, see Create a Detailed Sales Report.
Create a chart that summarizes your data graphically	Run the Microsoft Excel Chart Wizard. For more information, see Create a Chart from Worksheet Data.
Create a summary table that lets you change your view of the data dynamically	Create a Microsoft Excel PivotTable. For more information, see Create a Sales Summary.
Create a detailed Microsoft Access report without making changes to your original worksheet	Run the Microsoft Access Report Wizard directly from your Microsoft Excel worksheet. Click MS Access Report (Data menu). This command appears only if the AccessLinks add-in is installed and available. Click Add-Ins (Tools menu), and then click AccessLinks Add-In. If this option does not appear, rerun Setup and install the Data Access options. For more information, see Install and Start Microsoft Office.

If Your Data Is Stored Somewhere Other Than in Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel

Both Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel let you work with data from external sources.

Import files into or link files to your Microsoft Access database   Importing a file copies a snapshot of its contents into your database. Creating a link allows you to work with a file that continues to be maintained in its originating application. For more information, see Use Office Applications Together.

Bring data into your Microsoft Excel worksheet by using Microsoft Query   You can analyze external data in Microsoft Excel and refresh the data in your worksheet when it changes. See Get Sales Information from a Database.