Allocation & Matching in Excel: FIFO Payments to Invoices, Stock to Orders, Fair-Share Rationing, Capacity Allocation & Matching Two Lists

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Add a running total to eight orders for one item, show the stock left after each order, count the orders filled in full and find the first order that runs short – with helper columns and in one cell.
• Apply one payment from Brookline Bistro to its six open invoices oldest first: the amount the older invoices need, the allocated amount, the open balance and a Paid / Part-paid / Open status per invoice.
• Put Calder Rooms' five invoices and three payments on one money line with running totals, fill a matrix that shows which payment paid which invoice with one overlap formula, and list what is still open per invoice.
• Rank seven unsorted orders by priority and then by date with COUNTIFS, add up the demand ahead of each order with SUMIFS, allocate 600 pans and mark every order as Filled, Part or Zero.
• Share 520 knife sets among five stores in proportion to their requests, round down to whole units, count the units left over and hand them out with the largest-remainder rule so the allocation adds up exactly to the stock.
• Load seven engraving jobs into days of 7.5 hours in sequence, find the hours before each job, its finish day and its finish date with WORKDAY, and spread every job over the days with one overlap formula.
• Match seven bank lines with six open invoices: by exact reference, by counting candidates within an amount and date tolerance, by returning the first candidate with XLOOKUP, and with a running count that shows which lines share an amount.
• Close the month for six fictional customers: allocated amounts, unallocated cash and still-open balances, a check column that must show 0, a count of the exceptions and a stacked column chart of every payment.