How to Make a Pivot Table in Google Sheets

A pivot table in Google Sheets summarizes a larger table by category, owner, date, status, or another field. It is useful when raw rows are too detailed for review, but you still need the report tied to the source data.

Use pivot tables for recurring summaries: spend by category, deals by stage, tasks by owner, campaign counts by channel, or hours by team.

Start with clean source data

Your source table should have one header row, one record per row, and consistent values in each column.

For example, an expense table might include:

That structure works better than a report-style sheet with merged headers and totals mixed into the data.

Create the pivot table

Step 1. Select the source table.

Step 2. Choose Insert > Pivot table.

Step 3. Put the pivot table in a new sheet unless the source table is small.

Step 4. Add fields for rows, columns, values, and filters.

For an expense tracker, a useful first pivot is:

That gives you spending by category and owner while keeping the source transactions intact.

Pick the right summary value

Google Sheets can summarize values in several ways. Choose the one that matches the question:

A sales pipeline might use SUM of deal value by stage. A project tracker might use COUNTA of tasks by owner and status.

Use filters for review views

Filters make a pivot table useful in meetings. Add filters for date range, owner, status, campaign, or department so the same pivot can answer several review questions without duplicating the source table.

Common pivot table mistakes

The Griddy way

Pivot tables are fast once the source data is clean, but messy rows make the summary unreliable.

"Clean this expense table, create a pivot table showing spend by category and owner, and add a filter for the current month"

Griddy can normalize the source fields, build the pivot-style summary, and keep the report tied to the data people actually update.