If you regularly use Excel, you have probably seen how helpful charts can be. When you need to quickly compare two data sets or identify a pattern, a graphical depiction of your data is important.
In this article, we will dive deeper into Excel’s Waterfall chart, a specialized chart style outside simple graph creation. In one minute, you will know how to make a waterfall chart in Excel and have a few options for automating the process.
What is an Excel Waterfall Chart
Using a waterfall chart, you can visualize the development from the beginning to the end. An Excel Waterfall chart may illustrate the cumulative impact of increasing or decreasing amounts from a certain baseline. For example, displaying the monthly net cash flow figures on a waterfall chart would make it easy to identify successful and unsuccessful periods.
When to Use a Waterfall Chart
Traditionally, significant metrics like net profit or cash flow have been shown using waterfall charts to show their development over time. You may use them in sales, inventory management, and even classroom management to monitor and analyze the impact of both good and negative numbers on overall results.
Creating a Waterfall Chart in Excel
Do not look for a waterfall chart on Google Sheets because you will not find one. Excel has no ready-made waterfall chart template, which is a significant drawback. However, you may make your own with careful data organization and the Stacked Column chart type in the widely available Excel program.
Step 1:
Choose the information that will serve as the basis for the waterfall graph. For example, the ranges A1:A15 (which contains September dates) and C1:C15 (which shows transactions during the period) include our sample data. The Ctrl (or Command) key is used between choices since they are not non-adjacent columns.
Step 2:
Select the Waterfall chart option under the Charts subheading of the Insert menu. The graphic suggests a positive growth factors column chart with floating columns above and below the horizontal axis. Select Waterfall (the first chart).
A chart’s customization feature is necessary before it can be used effectively. Here are the instructions:
You May Edit a Waterfall Chart by Adding or Omitting Labels
Our data on column C consists of numbers that need a lot of space, making the connector lines graph unreadable; thus, they should be eliminated. One of two methods is suitable for this purpose. Do this by clicking on the chart.
To quickly access chart editor elements, click the plus (+) sign in the top right corner. Turn off Data Labels by deselecting the negative values box.
Make a New Chart Title or Adjust an Existing One
The graph icon of an effective chart should explain its contents. No title has been provided for our chart, but a blank one is shown.
To give your chart a name, click on the title gap. Enter a name of no more than six words that adequately describe the information shown in your cart. Whatever was in the blank chart title space before may be replaced using this procedure.
Double-clicking a chart’s current title will allow you to edit it and add fill color. It will bring the words into focus.
Simply by positioning the cursor where you wish to make intermediate changes, you may add, remove or alter line color. This is like any other text.
Adjust the Graph’s Dimensions
Due to the scale of this chart, the values on the X-axis are too close together, making it difficult to identify the date represented by each floating column on the last bars. This problem can be resolved by enlarging the chart.
To resize the data visualization graph, click on it and drag any of its eight handlebars. The four corner handles increase the chart proportion, while the center-left and right, and top-right corner handles elongate or reduce the image without affecting its height.
Benefits of a Waterfall Diagram
Seeing a stacked waterfall chart in action, you should now appreciate why they are so often used. Since the audience can easily see the overall impact of minor value changes, the simple layout makes performance analysis a breeze.
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