Annualizing data

[Julie]

I often compare sales data from the current year to the past year. When I do
this, I take the YTD figures and annualize using a constant. Each time I go
back I have to put in a new constant depending on the date.

Is there any kind of equation that will take a figure and annualize it based
on whatever day the file is open?

 

[Dave O]

Yes, most likely: what is your formula? Please post it, and we can
figure out how to make it dynamic for your application.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Julie

How is your previous year's data held?
If you have a collection of sales with all of their individual dates, then
it would be easy enough to use Sumproduct for the range of dates that
corresponds to this year's year to date. You would then have a like for like
period comparison of actual data.

If you are adjusting this year's figures to scale them up to a full year,
are you just multiplying this year's figures by a ratio of Year/Year to date?
If so, then the multiplication factor would just need to be set to

=1/((TODAY()-yearstart)/(EOMONTH(yearstart,11)-yearstart))
provided your yearstart is the first day of a month. If it isn't post back
and the formula can be amended.

EOMONTH is a feature from the Analysis Toolpack
Tools>Addins>Analysis Toolpak

Regards

Roger Govier

 

[Julie]

Thank-you fore your response. The data comes from our company accounting
system that changes by the minute. I run a query for Year to date parts
sales by customer and the data that is dumped into excel is every part that
has been sold to each customer YTD up to that moment. When running the
report today, I multiply every YTD sales figure by the constant 1.064 which I
calculate by dividing 365 by 343, which is the number of days of sales that
YTD represents. If I were to run the report on July 1, I would multiply by
2, etc.

I went to tools>addins>Analysis Toolpak, then tried your equation in place
of my constant. I got an error message that read #NAME?. I don't really
understand the equation - what does the 11 mean?

 

[Julie]

Thank-you for your response. I received two responses, so I'll just repeat
to you what I did to him. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do this. Anyway:

The data comes from our company accounting
system that changes by the minute. I run a query for Year to date parts
sales by customer and the data that is dumped into excel is every part that
has been sold to each customer YTD up to that moment. When running the
report today, I multiply every YTD sales figure by the constant 1.064 which I
calculate by dividing 365 by 343, which is the number of days of sales that
YTD represents. If I were to run the report on July 1, I would multiply by
2, etc.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Julie
With 1/12/05 in A1,
=EOMONTH(A1,0) would return 31/12/05, i.e. the end of month December, held
in A1.
For Yearstart, I was expecting you to either substitute the cell holding the
date of your yearstart, or alternatively Insert>Name>Define>Yearstart
Refers to 01/01/05.

You are getting the #Name error, because yearstart isn't defined as a name (
I should have been more explicit in my first post).
So, if EOMONTH(A1,0) returns the last day of January, EOMONTH(A1,11) will
return the last date of December. Substitute whatever months you like, but
basically it will give you the end of the period 12 months from the start.

The formula, when used with TODAY() and whatever your Yearstart is, is
automatically defining your multiplication factor.

Regards

Roger Govier

 

[Julie]

Roger,
Thanks again - I'll work on that awhile. In the mean time, I wonder if you
wouldn't mind answering another date question for me. I have a column of
dates in excel in the following format:
20051209

The normal way of changing date formats (format, cell, date) does not change
the format. Is there a way to display these dates in a more traditional
format such as:
12/09/2005, or 12/09/05??

Thanks in advance for your help!

Julie Young

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Julie

Possible the easiest way is to highlight the range of dates
Data>Text to Columns>Fixed Width>Next>Date then select YMD from the
dropdown>Finish
In the UK, that gives me 09/12/2005
Repeat the exercise again, on the converted data, but select MDY from the
dropdown, and then I get
12/09/2005
If your regional settings are mm/dd/yyyy you may get the answer after the
first conversion.

Alternatively, the formula way would be
=--MID(A1,5,2)&"/"&RIGHT(A1,2)&"/"&LEFT(A1,4)


Regards

Roger Govier