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How to sort and compare data in uneven annual inventory sheets? ~20000 products, ~10% items change yearly

I've taken a new job that requires me to compare past inventory with current inventory, annually, and perform some basic comparisons on each product. Each year we have around 18,000-22,000 products (rows), but the inventory varies by about 5-15% each year (some products are discontinued, some new products are added). For each product we have roughly a dozen columns of data such as product ID#, price, markup, geographic location, time to reach destination(s), etc. We manage this using Excel 2010.

I need to compare last year's inventory with this year's, and I will do this annually. (E.g., how much has each item increased in price, or delivery time, or whatever.) I need to do this for each product (row). I'd like to combine them into one sheet, sorted by product ID#, with each row matched up by product ID# when possible, and a blank space inserted when there's no match.* Then I can compare the past and current inventory, calculate e.g. how this year’s price (or shipping time, etc.) compares to last year’s, for each product.

*I.e., ideally, Excel would insert a blank row in the CurrentYear data where a product has been discontinued (and maybe write “Discontinued”), and insert a blank row in the LastYear data where a new product was added this year (and maybe write “New product”).

The generic challenge is a fairly common (if not easy) task: to first sort and then do a 'best match' of uneven data sets, lining them up by row and inserting spaces as needed to best match up the data. A similar function might apply, for example, to an annual membership list of people, in which some people drop out and some new members are added each year. I looked but haven't yet found a thread on this. I'm guessing it will involve VLOOKUP, or INDEX / MATCH, or COUNTIF (conditional formatting), but I'm not sure. This is something like a “reverse Delete Duplicates”.

Btw, if there is a much easier way to do this in Excel 2013, this might make the case for upgrading our office software.

I don't know how to use VBA, alas.

Many, many thanks!!


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