Excel Tip: Pivot Tables

** ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTANCY AUG 2000 WRITTEN BY JEFF LENNING

TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY GIVES financial managers the opportunity to create interactive, multidimensional reports. With the click of a few buttons, you can prepare up-to-date financial reports automatically.
IN ADDITION, THE REPORTS can provide drill-down functionality. Click on a number in the report, and the underlying support data appear.
THE MECHANISM APPLIES the PivotTable function of Microsoft Excel.
DATA ARE COLLECTED AUTOMATICALLY from your accounting software database and imported into an Access database, where they are then brought into Excel.

For the remainder of the article, please check out the full text.  Also, the original version on the AICPA website is still online.