Excel 2024: Sort Subtotals

April 24, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

This tip is from my friend Derek Fraley in Springfield, Missouri. I was doing a seminar in Springfield, and I was showing my favorite subtotal tricks.

For those of you who have never used subtotals, here is how to set them up.

Start by making sure your data is sorted. The data below is sorted by customers in column C.

Columns for Sales Rep, Date, Customer, Quantity, Revenue, Cost, and Profit. The data is sorted by Customer (column C).

From the Data tab, choose Subtotals. The Subtotal dialog box always wants to subtotal by the leftmost column. Open the At Each Change In dropdown and choose Customer. Make sure the Use Function box is set to Sum. Choose all of the numeric fields, as shown here.

The Subtotal dialog box says: At Each Change in Customer, Use Function Sum, Add Subtotal To Quantity, Revenue, Profit. The boxes for Replace Current Subtotals and Summary Below Data are checked. The box for Page Break Between Groups is unselected. There are three buttons at the bottom of the dialog: Remove All, OK, and Cancel. To add the subtotals, click OK.

When you click OK, Excel inserts a subtotal below each group of customers. But, more importantly, it adds Group and Outline buttons to the left of column A.

More Reading

Excel 2024: Sort Left to Right »

April 22, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

Every day, your IT department sends you a file with the columns in the wrong sequence. It would take them two minutes to change the query, but they have a six-month backlog, so you are stuck rearranging the columns every day.

Excel 2024: Sort East, Central, and West Using a Custom List »

April 19, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

At my last day job, we had three sales regions: East, Central, and West. The company headquarters was in the East, and so the rule was that all reports were sorted with the East region first, then Central, then West. Well, there is no way to do this with a normal sort.

Excel 2024: Set Up Your Data for Data Analysis »

April 17, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

Make sure to follow these rules when you set up your data for sorting, subtotals, filtering and pivot tables.

Microsoft Excel Inside Out (Office 2021 and Microsoft 365)

December 2021

Dive Into Microsoft Excel for Office 2021 and Microsoft 365 and really put your spreadsheet expertise to work. This supremely well-organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, tips, and workaroundsall you need to make the most of Excels most powerful tools for analyzing data and making better decisions.

Your Excel Survival Kit - Second Edition

March 2021

This book helps you realize that Excel is on your side. It can be your friend, not your enemy. If and when you upgrade your Excel skills you will experience many positives: you will learn to love Excel, you will learn how to use Excel to become an invaluable asset in your workplace.

MrExcel 2022 Boosting Excel

April 2022

The 6th Edition of MrExcel XL, updated with new functions released for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Excel Pivot Table Data Crunching (Office 2021 and Microsoft 365)

December 2021

Use Microsoft 365 Excel and Excel 2021 pivot tables and pivot charts to produce powerful, dynamic reports in minutes: take control of your data and your business!

see more products »

Excel 2024: Sort Subtotals

More Reading

Featured Products