Monday, December 9, 2024

RECENT CONTENT

Getting Radical with Excel

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It's time to think about Excel in a radical new way—when we use it to work with business or economic data. It's time, in fact,...

FEATURED ARTICLES

Your data can contain many important, hidden patterns. But simple transformations in Excel can help to reveal them—as this example illustrates.

Simple Transformations Can Reveal Hidden Patterns in Your Data

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Excel users have at least two significant advantages over business professionals who rely on other analytical and reporting tools. First advantage: We Excel users can...
Use this unique Excel dashboard to track the general rate of inflation, your personal rate, and the rate of the goods and services you buy.

Inflation Tracker Excel Dashboard with Consumer Prices

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U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said of a growing economy, "A rising tide lifts all boats." However, a rising inflationary tide does not lift...
Using Excel's LET, SORTBY, and SEQUENCE functions, and dynamic arrays, you easily can list any number of top and bottom results from a Table.

How to Report Top and Bottom Results Using Dynamic Arrays in Excel

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In How to Use Excel’s LET Function, I showed several examples of a powerful function that Microsoft added to Excel 365 in the summer...
How to aggregate named groups of GL accounts.

How to Report GL Account Groups in Excel

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Believe it or not, this income statement is quite sophisticated. It's not nearly as simple-minded as it looks. In fact, this income statement illustrates a...
In Excel, you can report named groups of GL account numbers, product codes, and so on—just as you report one such number. Here’s how.

How to Use Array Formulas to Report Groups of Accounts

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Often, in accounting, marketing, and other departments, we'd like to report and analyze groups of items rather than one item at a time. In Part...

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Growing too fast can be dangerous to your company's health. Use the Sustainable Growth Rate ratio to track your company's financial ability to grow.

How Fast Is Too Fast?

(Originally published in Inc Magazine.) What typically tops the list of worries of the chief executive officers of fast growing companies? Financing that growth, according...
As inflation rises, so do mortgage interest rates—causing house prices to fall. Here's how Excel's PV function can help you estimate what you new house price will be.

Here’s How Inflation Could Affect the Value of Your Home

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November 5, 2021 Inflation is rising in the U.S. And that made me wonder how a higher rate of inflation could affect the price of...
A shortage of truckers is one cause of the supply chain crisis in the US. This Excel chart suggests that the problem won't end soon.

An Excel Chart of a Major U.S. Supply Chain Problem

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October 23, 2021 A shortage of truckers now appears to be the greatest problem with the United States' supply chain. In fact, President Biden said in...

A Lesson in Excel Analysis Learned from Rising US Inflation

Looking at the trends in the annual rate of change (ROC) of business and economic measures is an excellent way to reveal hidden information...
Here's how you can split delimited text into an array with a short Excel formula, and then wrap the formula with the INDEX function to return any value from the array.

How to Split and Index Delimited Text with Excel Formulas

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For the longest time I've wished that Microsoft would add a SPLIT function to Excel. The function would have a syntax like this... =SPLIT(text, delimiter,...

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

Growing too fast can be dangerous to your company's health. Use the Sustainable Growth Rate ratio to track your company's financial ability to grow.

How Fast Is Too Fast?

(Originally published in Inc Magazine.) What typically tops the list of worries of the chief executive officers of fast growing companies? Financing that growth, according...

How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function

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Years ago, I read that Prof. William S. Cleveland had suggested that data could be smoothed by calculating a centered trendline through adjacent data—a...
Two economists have introduced a new leading indicator, which predicts a recession soon. These Excel charts illustrate their insight. If they're correct, Excel users will be very busy in the months ahead.

Consumer Sentiment Suggests a 2022 Recession

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In recent months, business websites have speculated about recessions and stagflation in 2022. These predictions could affect your Excel work significantly in the next few...
Your data can contain many important, hidden patterns. But simple transformations in Excel can help to reveal them—as this example illustrates.

Simple Transformations Can Reveal Hidden Patterns in Your Data

0
Excel users have at least two significant advantages over business professionals who rely on other analytical and reporting tools. First advantage: We Excel users can...
As inflation rises, so do mortgage interest rates—causing house prices to fall. Here's how Excel's PV function can help you estimate what you new house price will be.

Here’s How Inflation Could Affect the Value of Your Home

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November 5, 2021 Inflation is rising in the U.S. And that made me wonder how a higher rate of inflation could affect the price of...

FORMULAS & FUNCTIONS

How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function

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Years ago, I read that Prof. William S. Cleveland had suggested that data could be smoothed by calculating a centered trendline through adjacent data—a...
As inflation rises, so do mortgage interest rates—causing house prices to fall. Here's how Excel's PV function can help you estimate what you new house price will be.

Here’s How Inflation Could Affect the Value of Your Home

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November 5, 2021 Inflation is rising in the U.S. And that made me wonder how a higher rate of inflation could affect the price of...

How to Smooth Monthly Trends with Centered Moving Averages

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I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the expected increase of electric vehicles in the US. That made me wonder...
To reduce errors in reports, you should foot and cross-foot them. But Excel's floating-point arithmetic gets in the way. Here's how to fix the problem with a standard deviation calculation.

How to Foot and Cross-Foot Excel Reports in a Floating-Point World

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At first glance, the following report is an ordinary one. It merely sums an Excel Table by Product and Region, and then foots and...

Excel’s XLOOKUP Function Explained

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Excel's XLOOKUP function searches a range or an array, and returns an item corresponding to the first match it finds. If a match doesn't...

How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function

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Years ago, I read that Prof. William S. Cleveland had suggested that data could be smoothed by calculating a centered trendline through adjacent data—a...