Advanced Excel Skills for Accountants

Level: Intermediate

Available Durations:

• 50 minutes
• 60 minutes
• 75 minutes
• 90 minutes
• 100 minutes
• 120 minutes

Description:

Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, explains helpful ways you can improve the integrity of your spreadsheets using Excel’s lookup functions and pivot tables. In this comprehensive presentation, David reveals alternatives to VLOOKUP, including the HLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH, SUMIF, SUMIFS, and IFNA. You’ll also get a preview of the new XLOOKUP function being added to Microsoft 365. Lookup functions are only the start, though. In many cases you’re only a few mouse clicks away from transforming overwhelming lists of data into meaningful reports.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2019, 2016, 2013, and earlier) during the presentation as well as in his detailed handouts. David also provides an Excel workbook that includes most of the examples he uses during the webcast.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that provides new-feature updates as often as monthly. Conversely, the perpetual licensed versions of Excel have feature sets that don’t change. Perpetual licensed versions have year numbers, such as Excel 2019, Excel 2016, and so on.

Topics/Areas Typically Covered:

• Adding fields to a blank pivot table to create instant reports.
• Contrasting the INDEX and MATCH combination to VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP.
• Creating a pivot table to transform lists of data into on-screen reports.
• Determining which refresh commands in Excel update a single pivot table versus all pivot tables in a workbook.
• Discovering four different ways to remove data from a pivot table report.
• Discovering how to use wildcards and multiple criteria within lookup formulas.
• Distinguishing the differences among pivot table-related menus in Excel 2013 and later versus older versions of Excel.
• Employing the SUMIF function to sum values related to multiple instances of criteria you specify.
• Explaining the new XLOOKUP worksheet function being rolled out to Microsoft 365 users.
• Filtering data within pivot tables in Excel 2010 and later by way of the Slicer feature.
• Identifying situations where VLOOKUP may return #N/A instead of a value.
• Identifying the ideal data for analysis with Excel’s PivotTable feature.
• Integrating data on web pages into your workbooks and creating automatic links.
• Learning about the IFNA function available in Excel 2013 and later.
• Learning what types of user actions can trigger #REF! errors.
• Performing dual lookups, which allow you to look across columns and down rows to cross-reference the data you need.
• Summarizing data from Access databases with pivot tables, even if you don’t have Microsoft Access installed.
• Transforming numbers stored as text into values by way of the Text to Columns wizard.
• Understanding how the VLOOKUP function allows you to look up data instead of having to manually reference individual cells.
• Using the HLOOKUP function to look horizontally across rows in any version of Excel.
• Using the MATCH function to find the position of an item in a list.
• Using the SUMIFS function to sum values based on multiple criteria.
• Using VLOOKUP to perform approximate matches.
• Utilizing Excel’s IFERROR function to display alternate values when VLOOKUP returns an error.

Learning Objectives/Why You Should Attend:

• Apply a variety of lookup functions in order to work more efficiently in Excel.
• Recognize why the INDEX and MATCH combination is often superior to VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP.
• Contrast pivot tables to lookup functions.

About the Instructor:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA is the owner of Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based spreadsheet consulting firm that he started in 1991. Throughout his career David has spoken at conferences on Microsoft Excel, and written dozens of freelance articles about spreadsheets. He offers Excel and Access training and consulting services nationwide.

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