What I've devised based on @Pecoflyer 's 3D-referencing post works, but it is rather cumbersome.

I appreciate the effort you put into your post. And your solution appears more elegant than my rendition -- but quite beyond my Excel literacy.

Before I attempt to educate myself on Excel defined tables and Validation lists, would you take a moment confirm that your solution should work for my project?

My daughter is a residential construction contractor. I want to estimate her working capital needs by month based on her budget for each "job".

Under my "3D-reference" solution, each job resides on its own sheet. And each job "cell" is an amount by [row] job phase (e.g. Demo, Concrete, Masonry ...) and [column] month staring with January for 24 columns.

Additional rows include "Billing", so as to calculate additional rows "Net" and "Cumulative".

Additional columns include "Phase name" and "Balance Forward"

The "Totals" sheet accumulates all the job sheets (along with other calculations) to establish working capital requirements by month.



My solution works. And serves to meet this month's deadline. So under the adage "If it ain't broke ..." I should probably leave it alone.

But your solution intrigues me. Am I correct that your approach is likely better?

Yes, it will work!

Designed properly, such design allows:
Register project's detailed phases and their budgets/costs monthly (I advice to use month number in format yyyymm);
Register project's start and end at any month;
Register projects of any length (from single month to several years);
In case this is needed, registering both planned budget and real costs spent;
Design monthly and yearly reports for single project, and as total of all projects in report period;
Design reports for totals of selected project (from start to end);
etc.

Based on your post, I assume the main data entry table will be, where planned (and realized) phases of project are registered (E.g. Month, Project, Phase, [Type], Amount, ...). (Type is optional - in case you want enter both planned and realized phases.)

Thank you for your encouraging reply.

As mentioned, I have some self-study ahead of me to understand "defined tables" and "Validation Lists". Is "Register" as you use it above also an Excel keyword concept?

And, dare I hope, is there a internet-viewable example in Excel that you know of that approximates your approach?