There’s a Time and Place for Stacked Bar Charts

I love data visualizations as much as the next person, but can we agree that we might be overdoing it on stacked bar charts? I’m not opposed to this type of data display. There are several situations in which stacked bar charts are the perfect choice.

A bar chart showing Q1 through Q4 with revenue broken down to show subscriptions, ticket sales, concessions, events, and advertising.
An example of a stacked bar chart showing revenue contributions by category across four quarters.

When to Use a Stacked Bar Chart

ย Stacked bar charts work best when they’re used to show how data from different categories adds up to a larger amount. And it’s especially useful to quickly compare how these data categories change over time.

There are so many situations where this type of chart makes sense in a spreadsheet:

  • Comparing digital sales to physical sales as a portion of the whole from one quarter to the next
  • Highlighting demographic changes within a population with census data from various years
  • Showing categorical growth, say subscription revenue, as a portion of total revenue for the stockholders

The key here isn’t just data as part of a whole (which can more effectively be displayed as a pie chart). It adds another important factor: Time.

The X value on a stacked bar chat (usually) shows time. This factor makes it supremely useful for checking growth, decay, and inconsistencies between specific periods of time.

How to Make a Stacked Bar Chart in Excel

Excel offers a pretty standard process for making stacked bar charts. And you don’t need to take an in-depth Excel course to understand it. Here’s a quick YouTube video we made about adding stacked bar charts to a spreadsheet.

Use Microsoft Excel to sort your data, then choose the chart from the “insert” tab.

To create an effective stacked bar chart, it’s crucial to organize your data correctly. In my example, data consists of revenue categories (ticket sales, subscription revenue, concessions, etc). Then the columns show revenue broken down by quarter.

If you want to make a stacked bar chart in Microsoft Excel, start by highlighting your data. That’s your dataset. Make sure it’s organized properly so your regions or categories correspond to the time or location data you want to compare.

Then click the “insert” tab and choose “charts”. Excel has a recommendation feature that can help you choose the best visualization for your specific dataset. In this case, choose the stacked bar chart.

TL;DR Summary

Use stacked bar charts when you want to compare components over time or across categories. That’s especially valuable for revenue presentations and forecasting.

For more tips and tricks on making the most of Excel and Google Sheets, check out SpreadsheetPoint.com.

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