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Calc New Balance

  • October 21, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 30 views
B

I am trying to create a formula that will result in an updated balance. I have a balance amount from the previous record. I either add an amount in or take an amount out in the following record. I need to have it calculate the new balance. So basically I am using an amount in a cell above the current record to help calculate a result in the current record. Does anyone know how this can be done. It is simple in Excel, but I don’t see how in Airtable. Thanks!

2 replies

B
  • Btbml
  • Inspiring
  • October 21, 2019

Databases work differently than spreadsheets, even though both can be shown in tables and look similar. The biggest difference is that each record is a standalone entity and can’t be directly compared to other records.

Except…

  • Airtable provides the Summary bar which will do a summary calculation on a whole column. Details here: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/203313975-The-summary-bar

  • Another way to compare records is to have a second table. An example of this would be to have 1 table that is sales people. The second table is sales. Each record in the sales table has a field which links to another table (sales people). Each record then gets tagged with a sales person. In the sales person table you then have links to each sale that a salesperson completed. You can then do a “rollup” formula to sum, average, etc all referenced sales records.

Hopefully one of these gets you moving in the right direction

Justin_Barrett
Justin_Barrett
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There are ways to get Airtable to show you a running total across records, but they’re complex to set up, and have their limitations. If you really want to go that route, check out this post:

As @Btbml said, Airtable’s summary bar is recommended if all you need is to see the total. From my experience, keeping a record-by-record running total isn’t actually necessary in many situations, but we’ve convinced ourselves that it is because that’s what we’re used to doing in older systems. Yes, there are times when it can be helpful, but what I most often want to see is the end result, not how that result changes with each entry. I’ve got more thoughts on this, but I’ll save them for another time.

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