Automating Financial Statements

3>Level: Intermediate

Available Durations:

• 90 minutes
• 100 minutes
• 120 minutes

Description:

In this session, Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, shows you step-by-step how to create dynamic accounting reports for any month of the year on just one worksheet. While Excel users often build worksheets for each month of the year, such worksheets can be cumbersome to revise. As an alternative, David explains how to use Excel functions, including VLOOKUP, OFFSET, and SUM, to quickly create accounting reports that allow you to switch to any reporting period with only two mouse clicks. He also outlines how to export data from your accounting package, improve the integrity of your spreadsheets, incorporate Check Figures and Alarms into you work, and more.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2021, 2019, 2016 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 2021, Excel 2019, and so on.

Topics/Areas Typically Covered:

• Adding a refinement to the SUMIFS function to allow the report to consolidate numbers or display departmental values.
• Automating the extraction of data for a given month or year to date by way of the OFFSET function.
• Building and exporting a 12-month Profit & Loss report from QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop as a model for what to look for when exporting from other applications.
• Consolidating financial statement exports from two or more entities by appending queries within Power Query.
• Creating a 12 month P&L report from QuickBooks Desktop and then exporting to the comma-separated value (CSV) format to streamline analysis.
• Creating a workbook with just two worksheets that will present data for any month of the year.
• Creating an in-cell list by way of Excel’s Data Validation feature.
• Creating self-updating financial spreadsheets by using Power Query in Excel 2010 and later to pull data via automated queries that also overcome common issues in exported reports.
• Exploring the nuances of data exported from accounting programs, such as extraneous worksheets, blank columns, and extraneous rows.
• Seeing how to use the Trusted Document feature in Excel 2010 and later to suppress the Data Connection security prompt.
• Understanding the use of the MONTH function to return the month portion of a date or month name.
• Using the Group command to interactively hide/unhide columns (and/or rows) within Excel worksheets.

Learning Objectives/Why You Should Attend:

• Define how to create accounting reports for any month of the year on a single worksheet.
• State the arguments for Excel’s SUMIF function.
• Recall which command in Power Query enables you to return a data set back to an Excel workbook or data connection.

About the Instructor:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA, is an author and nationally recognized instructor who teaches scores of webinars each year. His Excel courses are based on over 25 years of consulting and teaching experience. David’s mantra is “Either you work Excel, or it works you,” so he focuses on what he sees users don’t, but should, know about Microsoft Excel. His goal is to empower you to use Excel more effectively. To learn more about David, you can view his LinkedIn profile and follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@excelwriter).

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