Calculating Running Totals

Edit: If you are using SQL Server 2012 or 2014 you may like to see my latest post on the topic How to Calculate Running Totals in SQL Server

In one of my previous posts I wrote about Calculating Running Totals using a SELF JOIN.  But after realizing that, SELF JOIN is not efficient way of calculating Running Totals I thought of writing this post, with another technique without using Cursor.

In this post I'll show you how to Calculate Running Totals without using a cursor.  On the same line with my previous post, the different scenarios I’ll be covering in this post are -

• Running Total for all records.
• Running Total on each Group of Records.
• Running Total on each Date.

Here is our sample table :

ShipId	OrderId	ShipDate	Quantity
1	1	2009-02-01 12:06:16.820	10
2	1	2009-02-02 16:16:16.820	15
3	2	2009-02-01 13:26:16.820	20
4	2	2009-02-03 17:40:16.820	12
5	2	2009-02-04 13:05:16.820	15
6	3	2009-02-03 14:25:16.820	25
7	3	2009-02-04 15:50:16.820	50
8	3	2009-02-05 19:40:16.820	30
9	4	2009-02-06 15:30:16.820	20
10	4	2009-02-07 16:20:16.820	10
11	5	2009-02-05 17:05:16.820	35

Create Sample Data:

-- Create Table CREATE TABLE Sales ( ShipId INT, OrderId INT, ShipDate DateTime, Quantity INT ) GO -- Load Sample Data INSERT INTO Sales SELECT 1,1, 'Feb 01 2009 12:06:16:820PM',10 UNION ALL SELECT 2,1, 'Feb 02 2009 04:16:16:820PM',15 UNION ALL SELECT 3,2, 'Feb 01 2009 01:26:16:820PM',20 UNION ALL SELECT 4,2, 'Feb 03 2009 02:40:16:820PM',12 UNION ALL SELECT 5,2, 'Feb 04 2009 01:05:16:820PM',15 UNION ALL SELECT 6,3, 'Feb 03 2009 05:25:16:820PM',25 UNION ALL SELECT 7,3, 'Feb 04 2009 03:50:16:820PM',50 UNION ALL SELECT 8,3, 'Feb 05 2009 07:40:16:820PM',30 UNION ALL SELECT 9,4, 'Feb 06 2009 03:30:16:820PM',20 UNION ALL SELECT 10,4, 'Feb 07 2009 04:20:16:820PM',10 UNION ALL SELECT 11,5, 'Feb 05 2009 05:05:16:820PM',35

Case I : Running Total For all records.
Here I will calculate the Running Totals for each records. For that I'll be using a correlated sub query to calculate the Running Totals for the all the records. So the query will be :

SELECT O.ShipId, O.OrderId, O.ShipDate, O.Quantity         ,(SELECT SUM(I.Quantity)             FROM Sales I             WHERE I.ShipId <= O.ShipId          ) as RunningTotal FROM Sales O ORDER BY O.ShipId

Here is the result returned by above query :

ShipId	OrderId	ShipDate	Quantity	RunningTotal
1	1	2009-02-01 12:06:16.820	10	10
2	1	2009-02-02 16:16:16.820	15	25
3	2	2009-02-01 13:26:16.820	20	45
4	2	2009-02-03 17:40:16.820	12	57
5	2	2009-02-04 13:05:16.820	15	72
6	3	2009-02-03 14:25:16.820	25	97
7	3	2009-02-04 15:50:16.820	50	147
8	3	2009-02-05 19:40:16.820	30	177
9	4	2009-02-06 15:30:16.820	20	197
10	4	2009-02-07 16:20:16.820	10	207
11	5	2009-02-05 17:05:16.820	35	242

Case II: Running Total on each Group of Records.
Now instead of calculating the running total for each record we will calculate the running total for each OrderId. For that small change in our above query will be addition of one condition in WHERE clause of , that will be - I.OrderId = O.OrderId. So the final query will be:

SELECT O.ShipId, O.OrderId, O.ShipDate, O.Quantity         ,(SELECT SUM(I.Quantity)             FROM Sales I             WHERE I.OrderId = O.OrderId             AND I.ShipId <= O.ShipId          ) as RunningTotal FROM Sales O ORDER BY OrderId

And the Output :

ShipId	OrderId	ShipDate	Quantity	RunningTotal
1	1	2009-02-01 12:06:16.820	10	10
2	1	2009-02-02 16:16:16.820	15	25
3	2	2009-02-01 13:26:16.820	20	20
4	2	2009-02-03 17:40:16.820	12	32
5	2	2009-02-04 13:05:16.820	15	47
6	3	2009-02-03 14:25:16.820	25	25
7	3	2009-02-04 15:50:16.820	50	75
8	3	2009-02-05 19:40:16.820	30	105
9	4	2009-02-06 15:30:16.820	20	20
10	4	2009-02-07 16:20:16.820	10	30
11	5	2009-02-05 17:05:16.820	35	35

Case III: Running Total on each Date.
Now we will see how to calculate the Running Total for each day. For that some small modifications will required in our WHERE clause, observe them carefully and try to understand what I’m trying to do :

SELECT O.ShipId, O.OrderId, O.ShipDate, O.Quantity         ,(SELECT SUM(I.Quantity)             FROM Sales I             WHERE I.shipDate <= O.Shipdate             AND DateAdd(dd, DateDiff (dd, 0, I.Shipdate), 0)             = DateAdd(dd, DateDiff (dd, 0, O.Shipdate) ,0)           ) as RunningTotal FROM Sales O ORDER BY O.ShipDate

And the output :

ShipId	OrderId	ShipDate	Quantity	RunningTotal
1	1	2009-02-01 12:06:16.820	10	10
3	2	2009-02-01 13:26:16.820	20	30
2	1	2009-02-02 16:16:16.820	15	15
6	3	2009-02-03 14:25:16.820	25	25
4	2	2009-02-03 17:40:16.820	12	37
5	2	2009-02-04 13:05:16.820	15	15
7	3	2009-02-04 15:50:16.820	50	65
11	5	2009-02-05 17:05:16.820	35	35
8	3	2009-02-05 19:40:16.820	30	65
9	4	2009-02-06 15:30:16.820	20	20
10	4	2009-02-07 16:20:16.820	10	10

Mangal Pardeshi