Year-Over-Year Growth - Excel PivotTable

Posted on: 03/11/2021

Year-Over-Year (YOY) growth compares one period, usually a quarter or a month, against the same period twelve months before. You can compare Q3 of 2022 against Q3 of 2021. Another example is comparing the month of November 2022 to November 2021.

You can even compare one day to the same day in the previous year. A restaurant may want to compare Mother's Day revenue in one year against Mother's Day during the previous year.

Year-Over-Year in Excel for Quarters

Advantage of Year-Over-Year Analysis

The advantage of Year-Over-Year analysis is it removes the effects of seasons. Two examples:

Your business revenue rose 15% from May to June. That initially sounds great, but when you examine the previous year in June, revenue rose 30% from the previous month (May).
Suppose sales for June of this year are $10,000, and you think that is great, but when you compare to June of last year, June sales the previous year were $14,000. Sales decreased by 28.5%. This is why year-over-year analysis is a great tool.

List of items you could compare with YOY

Revenue
Net income or profit
Subscribers
New customers
Expenses
Orders

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Year-Over-Year YouTube Video

Excel file used in the video

Year-over-year Excel file

Create a PivotTable in Excel

Select the cells you want to create a PivotTable from.
Select Insert > PivotTable.
Under Choose the data that you want to analyze, select Select a table or range.
In Table/Range, verify the cell range.
Under Choose where you want the PivotTable report to be placed, select New worksheet to place the PivotTable in a new worksheet or Existing worksheet and then select the location you want the PivotTable to appear.
Select OK.

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Chris Menard

Chris Menard is a Microsoft Trainer (MCT) and works as a full-time Trainer at BakerHostetler - one of the largest law firms in the US. Chris runs a YouTube channel with 900+ technology videos that cover various tools such as Excel, Word, Zoom, Teams, Gmail, Copilot, Google Calendar, and Outlook. To date, the channel has helped over 20 million viewers. Menard also does 2 to 3 public speaking events yearly, presenting at the Administrative Professional Conference (APC), the EA Ignite Conference, the University of Georgia, and CPA conferences. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at https://chrismenardtraining.com/linkedin or watch his videos on YouTube at https://chrismenardtraining.com/youtube.