Use VLOOKUP to compare trial balances. Sometimes you have two (or more) trial balances for different accounting periods which you need to compare. If the list of trial balance accounts changed from one period to another, it may become difficult to match the accounts side by side. This Excel lecture explains how to use VLOOKUP to build a comparable trial balance for two or more periods.

This Excel lecture suggests a fast way to create comparative trial balances using Excel pivot table function. The below technique provides essentially same results as Vlookup and Trial Balances Function and Example, which uses Excel formulas instead of pivot tables. If you are more comfortable with Excel formulas (sum, if, iserror and vlookup), then you can find lecture on using Vlookup more practicable.

This Excel lecture explains how to fill down values in cells using Excel IF function. This technique will be useful if you need to fill in values in columns and such values change on different rows.

This Excel lecture explains VLOOKUP function and VLOOKUP syntax in Excel. One VLOOKUP example is provided to illustrate the benefits of using this function. Read this VLOOKUP tutorial to see that VLOOKUP is a very powerful function in Excel.

This Excel lecture explains sumif function in Excel. Two sumif examples are provided to illustrate the power of sumif function. Sumif is very useful in summarizing (accounting) data. You can use a pivot table or sumif function to summatize numbers based on a criteria, and sumif can be more flexible than a pivot table in some situations.