http://www.dangode.com/excel/. You can attend in person (KMC 3-65) or via Zoom. You can attend any part without attending other parts. We do not record these sessions because we have had poor attendance and low interaction when students know the sessions will be recorded. Learning Excel requires a commitment of time and attention. Almost no student can focus during hours-long recordings. As a result, students neither attended the session nor watched the recordings.
If using Zoom, you must log in with your NYU ID, not Stern ID. Contact NYU or Stern IT for instructions.
Sessions 1 and 2: Sunday, September 29, KMC 3-65 and Zoom
Sessions 3 and 4, Sunday, October 20, KMC 3-65 and Zoom
Sessions 5 and 6, Sunday, October 27, KMC 3-65 and Zoom
Overview
Excel is an important tool for business analysis. Being productive in Excel requires understanding the underlying business concepts, laying out the problem in a spreadsheet, and optimizing it using various Excel functions and features. This seminar helps you apply advanced Excel techniques to become a productive Excel power user. By the end of this course, you should be able to:
- Organize spreadsheets to optimize teamwork and analyze scenarios.
- Create concise and understandable spreadsheets that reduce the risk of errors.
- Utilize advanced Excel techniques to automate and condense schedules, build scenarios, and make spreadsheets responsive.
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.
Requirements
- Please get the most recent version of Excel. Microsoft Office 365 is free for students and has the most recent Excel version. That works the best. I will illustrate Excel functions that do not work in versions released before 2021. Please contact Stern IT for Office 365 installation.
- Windows and MAC will work, although the Windows version is easier to use. Since Stern podiums have Windows, I will be using Windows in class.
Topic 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.
- Setting up loan amortization tables for various types of loans
- Time value of money problems; annuities
Excel skills taught
Understanding the Excel interface and setting up files
- Accessing menus
- Excel options for data creation
- Undo and redo
- File manipulation: Open, Save, Save As, Close Workbook, and Switch Programs
- View: Maximize window, Remove all toolbars, Hide Ribbon, Title Bar, and Status Bar, Zoom options, Print gridlines, View gridlines, Print preview
- Custom views, Freeze Panes, and Split Window
Navigation and selection
- Navigate between sheets and screens: Next worksheet, Previous worksheet, Right one screen, Left one screen, Navigate to a specific worksheet
- Move around a sheet: Beginning of a row, The first cell on a worksheet, Move to the edge of data regions Turn on End mode, End of a data region (last nonblank cell). Last used cell on a worksheet
- Extend selection, Select entire row, Select entire column, Select current data region, Select region/worksheet, Select only visible rows and columns,, Select array formula range
- Find and replace, Find different cells
- Go to a cell with a specific address or attributes
Enter text
- Edit a cell and show its precedent cells
- Insert, Edit, and Delete comments
- Insert or Edit threaded comment
- Wrap text
- Merge cells [Use very sparingly]
- Center across selection [Preferred]
- Spell check and Thesaurus
Enter formulas and name cells
- Relative versus absolute addresses: A1-style versus R1C1-style, Toggle absolute references
- Autosums
- Create name Create names from a selection
- Paste names if names are present Name Manager
- Enter an array formula
- Insert function and Insert function arguments
Format numbers and characters [Excel styles are covered later]
- Show Format Cells dialog
- Access format number dialog
- Toggle Bold, Italic, Underline, Strike-through
- General number format, Decimals, Time, Date, Currency, Percentage, Scientific notation
- Fonts, Zip codes
Alignment and indentation, Borders and Shading, Width and height
- Align: Left, right, center, top, bottom, and middle
- Indent and outdent
- Border dialog, Single and double borders, Shading,
- Row heights and column widths, show and hide
- Difference between merging cells and centering across selection
- Difference between wrapping text and starting a new line in a cell
- Group and ungroup
Insert, delete, and clear
- Insert and delete sheets, rows, columns, and cells
- Different types of Clear
Copy, paste, and fill
- Select cells using keyboard
- Copy Cut/Move
- Show Clipboard to copy multiple items
- Different types of paste, Paste Special Dialog
- Format painter
- Copy formula from the cell above, Copy value from the cell above
- Fill down, right, left, and up
- Fill selected region with data
- Fill Series
- Fill justify
- Flash Fill: Fill based on a pattern
Formula auditing and calculations
- Formula auditing and calculations
- Toggle display of values/formulas
- Trace Precedents, Trace All Precedents, Trace Dependents, Trace Al Dependents Clear all arrows
- Calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks
- Evaluate
Setting up spreadsheets and cell types
- Setting up an Excel worksheet to separate inputs from outputs
Charting
- Basic chart types
- Setting chart parameters
Excel financial functions
- NPV
- XNPV
- IRR
- XIRR
- FV
- NPER
- PMT
- PPMT
- RATE
- NOMINAL
- EFFECT
Topic 2: Introductory data analysis
Business skills
- Summarizing data
- Identifying trends
- Slicing data from multiple perspectives
Excel skills
Viewing sheets
- Freezing panes
- Grouping rows and columns
- Grid lines
- Print layouts
Custom formatting
- Formatting dates and times
- Giving character to numbers
Checks and errors
- Conditional formatting and check fields
- Reference errors
- Value errors
- Num errors
- Other errors
Logicals and conditionals
- IF statements
- AND, OR, and NOT statements
- CHOOSE statements
- AGGREGATE function
Data summarization and analysis
- COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, COUNTBLANK
- AVERAGE, AVERAGEA, AVERAGEIF, AVERAGEIFS
- MEDIAN, MODE.SNGL, MODE.MULT, RANK.AVG, RANK.EQ
- MAX, MAXA, MIN, MINA, LARGE, SMALL
- FREQUENCY
- PERCENTILE.EXC, PERCENTILE.INC
- VAR.P, VAR.S, STDEV.P, STDEV.S
- COVARIANCE.P, COVARIANCE.S, DEVSQ, CORREL, PEARSON
Classifying data
- Data filtering
- Pivot tables
Topic 3 [Advanced]: Building projections of financial statement
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
- Linking net income on the income statement and dividends on the cash flows to retained earnings
- Linking financing to debt and equity
- Linking cash flows to cash
Deriving cash flows from income statement and balance sheet assumptions
- Deriving receipts using revenues, receivables, and deferred revenues
- Deriving payments using expenses, prepayments, and payables
Excel skills taught
Excel best practices
- Separating assumptions from formulas to highlight assumptions clearly
- Setting up formulas that can be dragged across
Excel styles
- Excel styles for consistent formatting
- Modifying styles for global changes
Excel templates
- Using templates for consistent formatting across workbooks
Excel add-ins
- Excel Add-ins for sharing styles and code across workbooks
Topic 4: Identifying key performance drivers and scenario analysis
Business skills taught
Key drivers
- Identifying key drivers and key performance indicators
Scenario analysis
- What-if analysis using data tables
Excel skills
Seeking user input
- Data validation
- Spinners
- List boxes
Data tables
- One-dimensional tables
- Two-dimensional tables and their interpretation
Scenarios
- MATCH; INDEX
- VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, XLOOKUP
- INDIRECT
Topic 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.
- Building waterfalls and cascades efficiently
- Building advanced scenarios
Excel skills
Excel functions needed for multi-period models
- SUMPRODUCT, ARRAYS
- OFFSET
- Reversing using lookup
Automating charts
- Dynamic charts
- Advanced flexible charting using Offset
Integrating what-if analysis with scenarios
Combining the following functions to produce highly efficient spreadsheets
- Data validation
- Sumproduct
- Offset
- Indirect
- Data Tables
Topic 6 [Advanced]: Optimizations and simulations
Business skills
- Optimizing advertising mix given a budget
- Breakeven sales
- Efficient portfolios
- Circular relationships
Excel skills
Iterations
- Why are they needed?
- How can they be avoided?
- Recovering from iterations
Optimization
- Goal seek
- Solver
- Automatic goal seek and solver via VBA
Simulations and regressions
- NORM.DIST, NORM.S.DIST
- SLOPE, LINEAR REGRESSIONS