Mission M03 · Excel · 12 min

Your first pivot table: sales by region

Request from your manager

The VP of Operations, Laura, is preparing the annual review. She wants a small table with 2025 net sales for each region, sorted from highest to lowest, and she wants to know which region came out on top.

Data

Download the practice file(s):

⬇ sales_flat.xlsx⬇ sales_flat.csv

Steps

  1. Click inside the data and go to Insert > PivotTable > New Worksheet.
  2. Drag region to Rows and net_sales to Values (it should say 'Sum of net_sales').
  3. Drag order_date to Filters. Excel may create Years/Quarters fields automatically; use the Years filter (or the order_date filter) to keep only 2025.
  4. Right-click any value > Sort > Sort Largest to Smallest.
  5. Right-click a value > Number Format > Currency, 2 decimals.
  6. Read the region in the first row and its total.

Check your answer

What are the 2025 net sales of the top region?

Show solution

South leads 2025 with $32,783.92, followed by North ($32,184.19), Central ($31,488.33) and West ($31,114.93). The regions are close, so sorting matters.

PivotTable: Rows = region | Values = Sum of net_sales | Filter = Years: 2025 | Sort Largest to Smallest

' Formula check:
=SUMIFS(Table1[net_sales],Table1[region],"South",Table1[order_date],">="&DATE(2025,1,1),Table1[order_date],"<="&DATE(2025,12,31))

Answer: 32783.92 $

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