Topic: Hypothetical Excel question

[Clark Kent]

OK, so it's not so hypothetical, I need to figure this out for work.
Suppose that I have two years of data in separate files for dollar amounts in accounts.  I need to take these data and look at them side by side so I can look at the difference from one year to the next and pick out large differences.  The problem is that from one year to the next some accounts are used and some aren't.  SO in 2005 you can have accounts that are not used in 2006 and vice versa, which means that I have to play around with moving things around in order to get them to line u easily.  Does anyone know a way to do this quickly and easily?  here is an illustration:
the 2005 file would look similar to this:

a     2
b     2
c     2
e     2
j     2


The 2006 would be like this:
a     6
C     6
d     5
f     6
j     6

I need the 2005 and 2006 numbers that match to the column on the left to be side by side?  Make sense?  Is there a simple way to do this?

[Clark Kent]

I figured it ou- I just made sure that I had both years' data in one list, added headings for each column, added a new row that indicates the year it belongs to.  Then I did a pivot table, with year as my columns, the account number as my rows, and the amounts as my data, and poof- instant list to compare everything side by side!!  I'm pumped!!