Overview

Become an Excel power user and boost your productivity. This seminar helps you apply advanced Excel techniques to business problems. By the end of this course, you should be able to:

To register, please visit the Student Affairs website before emailing them at Academicaffairs@stern.nyu.edu. Please do not copy me on your emails to Student Affairs, as I am not involved in the registration process. The seminar is open only to Stern MBAs OR any student in my classes. Please let them know you are my student if you are not a Stern MBA student. These sessions are in person in KCMC 1-70, but you can also Zoom in. You can attend any part without attending other parts. However, please watch the Zoom recording for any part you miss. You will be much more productive if you attend the entire series.

Although sessions 1 and 2 are labeled as introductory, I think most of you will not know at least 30% of the shortcuts and efficiency-enhancing methods we will discuss in these two sessions. You will be much more productive if you attend the entire series.

You must be logged in as an NYU (not NYU Stern) user to watch the video recordings. First, open a private or incognito browser. Log in to your NYU zoom account. Then in another tab in the same browser, please open http://www.dangode.com/excel/index.htm. Click on one of the recordings. If you still have issues, contact Stern IT. Please do not email me.

Zoom link: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEsdO6trz4rEtV0FrbMq4oSa7nPWyLtySdY

Part 1 [Introductory]: Saturday,  September 30, 2023, 1-4 PM in Tisch 200 [The other sessions listed below are in KMC 1-70]. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.
Part 2 [Introductory]: Sunday, October 1, 2023, 1-4 PM in KMC 1-70. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.
Part 3 [Advanced]: Saturday, October 14, 2023 (This is the corrected date.), 1-4:30 PM in KMC 1-70. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.
Part 4 [Advanced]: Sunday, October 15, 2023 (This is the corrected date.), 1-4:30 PM in KMC 1-70. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.
Part 5 [Advanced]: Saturday, November 4, 2023, 1-4:30 PM in KMC 1-70. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.
Part 6 [Advanced]: Sunday, November 5, 2023, 1-4:30 PM in KMC 1-70. Click here for the recording after following the instructions above.

Requirements

Part 1 [Introductory]: Time value of money, credit cards, car loans, and mortgages

Business skills taught

The focus here will not be to teach finance per se but to illustrate how to use Excel to solve finance problems.

Excel skills taught

Understanding the Excel interface and setting up files

Navigation and selection

Enter text

Enter formulas and name cells

Format numbers and characters [Excel styles are covered later]

Alignment and indentation, Borders and Shading, Width and height

Insert, delete, and clear

Copy, paste, and fill

Formula auditing and calculations

Setting up spreadsheets and cell types

Charting

Excel financial functions

Part 2: Introductory data analysis

Business skills

Excel skills

Viewing sheets

Custom formatting

Checks and errors

Logicals and conditionals

Data summarization and analysis

Classifying data

Part 3 [Advanced]: Building projections of financial statements

Developing and reviewing business plans is an integral part of what entrepreneurs and executives do. Understanding how different pieces of a business plan fit together financially is critical to being a successful manager. The business plans are also the basis of budgets used to monitor the progress of a business or division.

Business skills taught

Linking financial statements

Deriving cash flows from income statement and balance sheet assumptions

Excel skills taught

Excel best practices

Excel styles

Excel templates

Excel add-ins

Part 4: Identifying key performance drivers and scenario analysis

Business skills taught

Key drivers

Scenario analysis

Excel skills

Seeking user input

Data tables

Scenarios

Part 5 [Advanced]: Multiperiod models, waterfalls, and cascades

Business skills

Waterfalls and cascades

The skills listed below can make you ten times faster and more accurate.

Excel skills

Excel functions needed for multi-period models

Automating charts

Integrating what-if analysis with scenarios

Combining the following functions to produce highly efficient spreadsheets

Part 6 [Advanced]: Optimizations and simulations

Business skills

Excel skills

Iterations

Optimization

Simulations and regressions