Aggregate Columns &
Group by Month
Sum multiple sales columns into a single Total Sales figure, then roll daily transaction dates up into monthly periods using Start of Month and Group By.
Raw transactional data often arrives with sales split across multiple columns — by product line, payment type, or channel — and with timestamps recorded at the day level. Before you can build a useful summary report, you need to do two things: collapse those separate columns into one Total Sales figure, and roll daily dates up into monthly periods.
Power Query handles both efficiently. Add Column → Standard → Add lets you sum selected columns into a new column in one step. Transform → Date → Start of Month normalizes any date to the first day of its month — making all days in January equal, for example — so that a subsequent Group By can aggregate every row in that month into a single summarized record.
| Steps | Directions |
|---|---|
| To Start | |
| Create a new query to source File 3A, and fetch the table named DailyManagerSales. | |
| Rename the query. | |
| To Aggregate the Sales Columns into One | |
| Create a summation column of Total Sales. | |
| Rename the new column to Total Sales and delete the other sales columns. | |
| To Group Sales by Month | |
| Identify the month of each row. | |
|
Group the Date column into months, summing Total Sales per month.
Group By
Transaction Date
New column name
Total Sales
Operation
Sum
Column
Total Sales
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