Why You Need to Learn Microsoft Excel
Posted on December 12, 2011 | No Comments
Katherine M Davison asked:
There are quite a few people out there who think they do not need to learn Microsoft Excel. It is an extremely powerful tool that can seem intimidating. Here are some of the ways that it can be used:
1. Lists – If you use Microsoft Word to create tables and they are large and fill the page, or you have had to change to Normal view because it overflows the page, then Microsoft Excel is an option. Think of Excel as a large table. It just happens to have over 200 columns and over 32,000 rows (a lot more depending on which version, Excel 2003 has 65,536 rows) You can easily create a contact list and sort it by multiple columns or rows, even using a custom list to create a custom sort. With the new table format or the older auto format you can format your list quickly, and change the format even quicker.
2. Timesheets – If you need to keep track of your time, timesheets are a useful tool, especially as when you enter a start time and an end time you can also have a calculation that will calculate how the total hours and minutes that was spent. Then for the total a simple sum will add them all together and by formatting the sum to show cumulative time you can have time greater than 24 hours. For example if your timesheet has a total of 40 hours on it, your sum will not show 40 hours but 16 hours because time is in 24 hour increments and it would want to add a day for each 24 hours. Cumulative time allows all the time to show without adding days. This is done changing the format of the total time to [hh]:mm the square brackets tell Microsoft Excel to show cumulative time.
3. Invoices – As with Timesheets this is a great way to invoice clients if you do not have specific invoicing software. I would use Microsoft Excel rather than Microsoft Word, why? Because Microsoft Excel can easily calculate totals and tax.
3. Projections – These are good for both business people and for personal use. For business projections can be used for sales, costs and expenses, the list can go on. I create projections for quite a lot, how much training will make per person, how many people I need to attend a training course in order to break even etc. For personal you can create projections for special events such as weddings and family parties. Holidays are my favourite, you can have how much you can save per month then create a table for different holiday packages and calculate how much spending money you will have for each.
4. Cashflow – this is something that everyone should calculate, but how many of us really do? Basic Excel skills will create a fantastic cashflow spreadsheet that you can plug in how much you spend on items monthly, yearly and quarterly. Then the spreadsheet will calculate how much of your salary needs to go to pay for all your expenses and how much you have left as spending money. There are a lot of templates that you can download from the internet to do this, Microsoft Office online has some that are free.
5. Scenarios – This could be mistaken for Projections, but for projections I meant calculations in a spreadsheet, for scenarios I mean the built in feature of scenarios. You create a spreadsheet, say a cashflow. If you are looking for a new job or trying to see what your cashflow would be like with different salaries you can create a scenario for each salary amount. When you want to see what one would look like you can show it and the entire spreadsheet will update. You can create a scenario report showing how they all look in either a table or pivot table report.
If you think that you would like to use Microsoft Excel in one of these ways but are not sure how, then consider taking a training course. When looking for a training course and you want to learn how to use the software in a particular way ask them which course will do that, if in doubt if you need more basic training in order to build your knowledge to a more advanced level ask to speak to one of the trainers, they should be able to find out how much your know and which courses you will need in order to learn what you need.
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There are quite a few people out there who think they do not need to learn Microsoft Excel. It is an extremely powerful tool that can seem intimidating. Here are some of the ways that it can be used:
1. Lists – If you use Microsoft Word to create tables and they are large and fill the page, or you have had to change to Normal view because it overflows the page, then Microsoft Excel is an option. Think of Excel as a large table. It just happens to have over 200 columns and over 32,000 rows (a lot more depending on which version, Excel 2003 has 65,536 rows) You can easily create a contact list and sort it by multiple columns or rows, even using a custom list to create a custom sort. With the new table format or the older auto format you can format your list quickly, and change the format even quicker.
2. Timesheets – If you need to keep track of your time, timesheets are a useful tool, especially as when you enter a start time and an end time you can also have a calculation that will calculate how the total hours and minutes that was spent. Then for the total a simple sum will add them all together and by formatting the sum to show cumulative time you can have time greater than 24 hours. For example if your timesheet has a total of 40 hours on it, your sum will not show 40 hours but 16 hours because time is in 24 hour increments and it would want to add a day for each 24 hours. Cumulative time allows all the time to show without adding days. This is done changing the format of the total time to [hh]:mm the square brackets tell Microsoft Excel to show cumulative time.
3. Invoices – As with Timesheets this is a great way to invoice clients if you do not have specific invoicing software. I would use Microsoft Excel rather than Microsoft Word, why? Because Microsoft Excel can easily calculate totals and tax.
3. Projections – These are good for both business people and for personal use. For business projections can be used for sales, costs and expenses, the list can go on. I create projections for quite a lot, how much training will make per person, how many people I need to attend a training course in order to break even etc. For personal you can create projections for special events such as weddings and family parties. Holidays are my favourite, you can have how much you can save per month then create a table for different holiday packages and calculate how much spending money you will have for each.
4. Cashflow – this is something that everyone should calculate, but how many of us really do? Basic Excel skills will create a fantastic cashflow spreadsheet that you can plug in how much you spend on items monthly, yearly and quarterly. Then the spreadsheet will calculate how much of your salary needs to go to pay for all your expenses and how much you have left as spending money. There are a lot of templates that you can download from the internet to do this, Microsoft Office online has some that are free.
5. Scenarios – This could be mistaken for Projections, but for projections I meant calculations in a spreadsheet, for scenarios I mean the built in feature of scenarios. You create a spreadsheet, say a cashflow. If you are looking for a new job or trying to see what your cashflow would be like with different salaries you can create a scenario for each salary amount. When you want to see what one would look like you can show it and the entire spreadsheet will update. You can create a scenario report showing how they all look in either a table or pivot table report.
If you think that you would like to use Microsoft Excel in one of these ways but are not sure how, then consider taking a training course. When looking for a training course and you want to learn how to use the software in a particular way ask them which course will do that, if in doubt if you need more basic training in order to build your knowledge to a more advanced level ask to speak to one of the trainers, they should be able to find out how much your know and which courses you will need in order to learn what you need.
Website content