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TECHNOLOGY Q&A

MICROSOFT EXCEL
Using Advanced Filter in Excel

Q. I have used A. There is a simple filter feature available in Excel, have a budgeted value of at least 20,000. Start by
the filter feature which is very useful. However, sometimes you may creating a “criteria range” specifying these three cri-
in Excel, but need to filter your data in more complicated ways, teria. To the side of your data or on a new spread-
what does the such as having multiple criteria or using wild card sheet, copy and paste the three headings of the col-
Advanced Filter criteria. Wild card criteria find values that share umns you are filtering: ACCT_TYPE, MON, and
feature do? some of the same characters but not all, such as BUDGET. Under each heading, specify the criteria
all customers whose last names start with “Su.” In for your filter. In order to find account types that
these cases, using Advanced Filter is much easier. start with the number six, the criteria will be 6*.
Let’s look at a few examples of how to use Ad- The * is a wild card and instructs Excel to include
vanced Filter. See the screenshot below for a snippet anything that starts with the number six, no matter
of the dataset we will be using. what comes after. The criteria for the month is Mar
In the first example, say you want to filter the since that is how the month of March is described
dataset to show account types that start with the in the dataset. The criteria for budgeted values of at
number six, occurred in the month of March, and least 20,000 is >=20000. If you do not include the

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38 | Journal of Accountancy November 2022