How to Make a Copy

How to copy “Ending Inventory” column data into “Begin Inventory” column:

Your inventory spreadsheet is in Microsoft Excel. Last month’s ending inventory counts will become this month’s beginning inventory counts. The best way to do this is to first save a copy of last month’s spreadsheet and rename it for this month; then copy the data in the cells under the “Ending Inventory” column and paste them into the cells under the “Begin Inventory” column. You can do this with all the cells at one time. The instructions are as follows:

1. Open the Inventory spreadsheet for the last month.

2. Click on the “File” button in the top left corner of your screen (above the toolbar)

3. From the dropdown menu, click on “Save As”

4. A dialog box will appear with the file name highlighted at the bottom; right click on the file name and rename it for this month

You are now working on this month’s inventory spreadsheet. You may want to close the file to make sure you see files for both last month and this month in the directory. Now you can open this month’s file and continue:

1. Position the cursor over the first cell under the “Ending Inventory” column on your spreadsheet. (Be careful not to click on the column title.)

2. Click and hold down on this first cell and, while still holding down the mouse button, drag down to the last cell in the column. (Be careful not go all the way onto the gray “total” cell at the bottom)

3. This entire column of cells should now be highlighted. Left click anywhere in the highlighted area.

4. From the drop down menu, click on “copy”.

5. Now position the cursor over the first cell under the “Begin Inventory” column. (Again, not the column title.)

6. Click and hold down on this first cell and, while still holding down the mouse button, drag down to the last cell in the column. (Be careful not go all the way onto the gray “total” cell at the bottom)

7. This entire...