SPECIALISTS IN FINANCIAL MODELLING

Essential Excel for Business Administration

This course is part of the Essential Excel Series:

Specifically designed for business administrators who need to take their Excel skills to the next level, this intensive full day course focusses on the technical Excel skills required in everyday administration roles.  This very practical course covers everything you need to perform your job and nothing you don’t!

For those who don’t have time to sit through extensive Excel “how to” training, the Essential Excel courses arm you with a range of tools, techniques and formulas essential for your job.  Guaranteed to contain “no fluff”, you will be equipped with the skills to increase productivity and produce more efficient and accurate Excel calculations and reports.

Prerequisites

The course material includes extensive use of Excel and participants will gain the maximum benefit from this course if they are already using spreadsheets. It is designed for users who do use (or will use) Excel on a semi-regular basis, and are comfortable with using its basic tools and functions.

At minimum, it is assumed that participants will know how to:

  • Navigate confidently in Excel
  • Create and use simple formulas
  • Link between workbooks

Who should Attend?

Office Managers, HR & Payroll staff, Project Administrators, Budget Coordinators, Finance & Administration Officers, Executive Officers, Purchasing Officers, Team Leaders, Market Research Analysts, Database Administrators, Account Managers

Learning Objectives

This course is very hands-on and practical and each participant will be expected to create their own spreadsheet models.  During the day, we’ll use the Excel tools and techniques learned to achieve common workplace solutions:

  • Create a pivot table report to summarise travel expenditure and procurement by location, type and department.
  • Budget for staff costs with workers compensation, payroll tax, annual leave and superannuation calculations.
  • Set up a cashflow forecast to monitor cash and balance against the bank account.  Use conditional formatting to highlight today’s date.
  • Track timesheets and monitor and report on staff productivity, measure billing, utilisation, KPIs and metrics

Course Content

Must-know Tools and Techniques

  • Key points on upgrading to the latest version of Excel
  • Cell referencing to ensure faster, more accurate formulas
  • Named Ranges
  • Time saving shortcuts

Formulas you simply can’t live without

  • Logical functions eg. IF, AND
  • Aggregation functions eg. SUMIF, COUNTIF
  • VLOOKUP & HLOOKUP and its successor XLOOKUP (365 only)
  • Combining formulas with Nesting
  • Selecting the correct formula
  • Adjusting formulas manually
  • Working with dates

Bullet-proofing your Model

  • Protect data by locking cells
  • Password Protection
  • Restricting incorrect data entry with data validations
  • Using worksheet protection to prevent entry
  • Protecting your file using “Read Only” and password protection

Charting

  • Creating and modifying a chart
  • Choosing the best chart to display data (line or column vs. pie chart)
  • Charting tips, tricks and shortcuts

Other Useful Tools

  • Pivot Tables
  • Grouping & Hiding
  • Filtering & Sorting
  • Conditional formatting