Pulling data from multiple data tabs

[mcdonnolda]

I wasn't able to find this posted, so here it goes.
I have a spreadsheet with multiple data tabs feeding a few summary tabs.

For this question I will deal with one summary tab and two data tabs, one data tab for sales and one data tab for service. On the summary tab, I want to look at vehicles sold during a certain time period-(looking to the sales tab). For each of the records in the sales tab that match the date range, I need to count the repair order activity on the service tab. The key between the summary and sales tab is the sales date, and the key between the sales and service tabs is the vehicle serial number.

I currently have multiple columns on the sales tab to perform the counts from the service tab, thus allowing me to pull the information to the summary tab. Problem is that the spreadsheet has over 2 million calculating cells and tends to take excessive amounts of time to recalc.

Can anyone show me a more effecent way without moving this to a database?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks Al

 

[EdNerd]

You might get a better answer, Al, if you could present samples of the data on your two data sheets and what a good result on the summary sheet would look like.

Ed

 

[Jeffrey Smith]

Sometimes when I have repeating formulas over a large number of rows that don't need to be recalculated often I do this. Keep the formulas at the top of your table as formulas. Make the rows below all values. If you need to recalculate, you can copy the first row of formulas down and then turn them into values again. This I usually create a macro to do and then add a button to make it easier.

Can't offer much else without examples.