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📘 Excel Beginner Course · Lesson 18 of 18

You’ve learned the pieces. Now build what real jobs ask for: a one-page quarterly sales report that a manager can read in a minute and you can refresh next quarter in five. The project workbook has 120 orders (July–September 2026) and a target per region. Work through the steps; the Practice sheet checks your key numbers.

Step 1: prepare the data (Lessons 2, 8)

• Click in the Sales data and press Ctrl+T; name the table Sales.
• Check Date is a real date (right-aligned) and Amount a number.
• Add a calculated column Month: =TEXT([@Date],"mmm").

Step 2: KPI cells (Lessons 5, 13)

On a new sheet called Report, build a row of headline numbers:

Total sales:       =SUM(Sales[Amount])
Orders:            =ROWS(Sales)
Average order:     =ROUND(AVERAGE(Sales[Amount]), 0)
September sales:   =SUMIFS(Sales[Amount], Sales[Date], ">=" & DATE(2026,9,1), Sales[Date], "<=" & EOMONTH(DATE(2026,9,1),0))
Growth vs July:    =Sep / Jul - 1          ' format as %
Customers:         =ROWS(UNIQUE(Sales[Customer]))

Format them big and bold, with a small label above each (Lesson 3).

Step 3: region vs target (Lessons 6, 14, 16)

Copy down for all four regions. Add conditional formatting: green fill when Status = Met, red when Missed, and data bars on Achievement.

Step 4: monthly chart (Lesson 9)

Make a small table of Month and Sales with SUMIFS on date ranges (or a pivot grouped by month), then insert a column chart. Title it “Sales by month, Jul–Sep 2026 (₹)”. Keep it on the Report sheet beside the region table.

Step 5: product pivot (Lesson 17)

Insert a pivot from the Sales table: Product in Rows, Amount in Values, sorted largest first, with % of Grand Total as a second value. Add a Region slicer. Place it below the chart.

Step 6: a title that writes itself (Lessons 4, 12)

="Sales report Jul-Sep 2026 - total Rs " & TEXT(SUM(Sales[Amount])/100000, "0.0") & " L"

Step 7: print-ready (Lesson 10)

• Set the print area to the Report sheet’s used range.
• Landscape, Fit to 1 page wide by 1 tall (it’s a one-page summary).
• Footer: Page &[Page] of &[Pages] and the print date.
• Save as PDF to share.

Step 8: make next quarter easy

Paste next quarter’s orders into the Sales table (it grows), change the dates in the KPI formulas, and Refresh All. Everything else updates: SUMIFS, lookups, conditional formatting, chart and pivot. That’s the payoff for using Tables and cell references instead of typed numbers.

Check your work

The Practice sheet in the project workbook lists the 12 numbers your report should show: total, September sales, growth, North’s status, South’s achievement, regions that met target, best product, largest order, average order, customer count, orders above ₹1 lakh and the title text.

You’ve finished the course

You can now enter and format data properly, write formulas with the right references, use SUM/IF/lookups/date and text functions, sort, filter, validate, chart, pivot and print. Next steps:

• Excel function course: all 338 functions with practice files.
• Formula combinations: real problems solved by combining functions.
• Excel VBA course: automate the report you just built.

Practice

Download this lesson’s workbook below. It has 120 orders and regional targets; build the report on a new sheet and check your 12 key numbers. Type your answers in the yellow column; the Check column turns green when you’re right, and the Answers sheet shows a working formula for every task.