Need Help With an MS Excel Project?

I want to create an Excel spreadsheet to track the costs/usage of energy consumption for my company from 2007 to current. We currently have 5 main offices with 9 regional offices. I want to track the water, electric, and gas usage. However, there are TWO problems that arise: (1) a lot of the bills have varying time periods such as (10/31-12/4/2007) or 1/3/2007-3/1/2007; (2) Each location has a minimum of 2-3 services (electric, gas, water) offered.

I am searching for ideas on how to create a spreadsheet that covers all areas in a fairly concise manner.

just an idea...

i would go the pivot table route for this.

- you would enter all the data into one table
- dates of service arent an issue...have 1 column for start date, and 2nd column for ending date.
- have 1 column for type (gas/electric...)...the pivot table will sort it out for you.
- entering vendors should be easy...once you type Edison in the 1st time, then the next time you use it, it will try to autocomplete the longer names for you.
-account numbers may not autocomplete, but autofilter should make it easy to sort and copy&paste.
- this is important...make sure you set your table up with a "dynamic named range" (google it or see source-i use dynamic ranges daily)) that way you can add to the bottom, and your range will automatically expand.
- you can create several pivot tables off of the 1 original table.
-you can go to youtube and watch some good video demos on pivot tables if you are not familiar with them.

good luck