Barnsieydale Sales-Related Data for 2004 and 2005 Report Research Paper

Barnsieydale Sales-Related Data for 2004 and 2005 Report - Research Paper Example There are various ways of adding and counting data (Microsoft Corporation 2006), the most appropriate are a simple addition and addition with one or more criteria. Subtotals by quarter for all persons are shown in the Sales Summary for 2005 in(000's) in Table 1. For example, Subtotal 815 means that all salespersons together have sold office furniture on 815,000 in the first quarter in the Commercial sector. Then, Sector subtotals (sales volumes by sector) are added. For example, Sector subtotal 3429 means that all salespersons together have sold office furniture on 3,429,000 in the Commercial sector in 2005. Then, 6,555,000 is annual sales result in 2005. Then formatting should be applied to the report to make it easy to read and understand. There are many basic formatting options available at the cell and worksheet level. Most are available on the Format Menu located on the Standard Excel toolbar. (Sandhills Publishing Company 2005) Pie charts and bar charts are very useful for analysis and easy to interpret. Peltier (2006) concludes that pie charts are good when you are showing the relative proportion of numbers that add up to a total, for a single series of data and when there are not too many wedges, particularly too many small ones. They show a good qualitative view of the data. Bar charts are good for quantitative displays, at showing progress toward a goal, especially if you've exceeded that goal (for this you should use a bar chart with a horizontal line at the goal). Sales by sector chart (Figure 1) shows the dynamic of sales of office furniture by a quarter in each sector. It shows that sales in Commercial sector are  £815 ,000 in the 1st quarter, then they grow to  £849,000 in the 2nd quarter, then they decline to  £799,000 in the 3rd quarter, and then they grow again to  £966,000 in the 4th quarter. Sales in the Commercial sector are higher than sales in other sectors in each quarter.