Friday, July 1, 2022

Recent Content

Aggregation Functions

How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function

Charley Kyd -
0
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

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

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

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

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

Analytical Methods Charley Kyd -
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...
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

Business & Economics Charley Kyd -
0
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

Array Formulas Charley Kyd -
0
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

Accounting & Finance Charley Kyd -
0
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

Accounting & Finance Charley Kyd -
0
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...

Blog

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.
Blog

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

Charley Kyd -
0
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

A Lesson in Excel Analysis Learned from Rising US Inflation

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

Berkshire Hathaway is raising prices, and their costs are increasing. Inflation is on the rise. These Excel charts illustrate the the problem.

Warren Buffett, Inflation, and Excel

Business & Economics

Many Excel reports leave managers knowing less than they did before. Here are five best practices to follow in planning your management reports.
Error Reduction

Five Best Practices in Your Excel Reporting Strategies

Charley Kyd -
0
Most Excel reports, forecasts, and analyses I've seen in my career could serve as excellent examples of what NOT to do in Excel. These reports...
Excel offers several ways to summarize data quickly and easily. Here are the most powerful and flexible approaches, which include using Excel array formulas.

The Most Powerful Ways to Summarize Excel Data for Reporting and...

Excel's STOCKHISTORY function can return decades of history about the prices of stocks for thousands of public companies from many countries. Here's an introduction to that function.

Introducing Excel’s STOCKHISTORY Function

When you document your Excel worksheets, give your readers complete information by including row and column headings in your figures.

Document Excel Worksheets with Pictures that Include Row and Column Headings

Using the right Excel charts to display year-to-date variances can clarify budgets and spending problems. But using the wrong charts is a waste of time.

Show Useful Year-to-Date Variance Charts in Your Excel Dashboards

Formulas & Functions

Here's how to define a background image for an entire worksheet or for a chart. And also, here's how to fake having a background image for a range.
Excel's Graphic Tools

How to Add Background Images in Excel

Charley Kyd -
0
"How can I place a background image and still use the cells that the image covers?" -- Sally M. Sally, You can do this, but possibly...
An article in the Wall Street Journal about babies born during the winter months offers some great advice about charts for Excel users in business.

Excel Charts, Seasonality, & Analysis: Five Lessons from the WSJ

By charting the annual Rate Of Change (ROC) of key measures, you can uncover significant information about your time-series data. And by using the right recession measure, you can put that information into better context.

Chart Your Rate of Change to Reveal Hidden Business Performance

Spreadsheet users in businesses have distributed management dashboard reports for more than 30 years. Here's an example from the early days of spreadsheets.

The First Spreadsheet Dashboard: Mini-Graph Reports in Lotus 1-2-3

How to calculate and highlight the standard error of the estimate on each side of the trend in an Excel chart to make exceptional results stand out.

Highlight Normal Results in Line Charts to Make Exceptional Results Stand...

Excel Methods

SUMPRODUCT is one of Excel's most-powerful function for summarizing data. It offers much of the power of array formulas, but without the complications.
Aggregation Functions

How to Use SUMPRODUCT in Excel to Summarize Worksheet Data

Charley Kyd -
0
After I posted  The Most Powerful Ways to Summarize Excel Data for Reporting and Analysis, a reader asked why I hadn't discussed the SUMPRODUCT function. I told him...
Excel's CLEAN function does more than Excel's help topic says. In fact, it cleans all but two nonprinting characters in the ASCII and Unicode character sets. Here's how to deal with nonprinting characters.

Excel’s CLEAN Function is More Powerful Than You Think

How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function

Does Excel's INDEX worksheet function work for you only some of the time? Here are ways to learn why your INDEX function isn't working as you expect.

How to Debug INDEX in Excel

Does your company need to make scheduled payments to companies that don't send invoices? This worksheet will help to plan those cash requirements.

Manage Periodic Payments with an Excel Cash Calendar

All Categories

Popular

When you bring data from another source into an Excel worksheet, the data often includes rows that you’ll want to delete. Here's the first of two methods.

How to Delete Blank or Unneeded Rows, Method 1

Worksheet Interaction Charley Kyd -
0
When you bring data from another source into an Excel worksheet, the data often includes rows that you’ll want to delete. Often, you’ll want...
When you want to look up data in Excel, you should never use a worksheet function with "lookup" in its name. Here's why...

Why INDEX-MATCH Is Far Better Than VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP in Excel

Downloads Charley Kyd -
0
(Download the workbook.) Excel’s VLOOKUP function is more popular than the INDEX-MATCH function combination, probably because when Excel users need to look up data then a "lookup" function...
Excel provides several worksheet functions for working with normal distributions or 'bell-shaped curves.' This introduction to Excel's Normal Distribution functions offers help for the statistically challenged.

An Introduction to Excel’s Normal Distribution Functions

Business Statistics Charley Kyd -
0
(Download the workbook.) When a visitor asked me how to generate a random number from a Normal distribution she set me to thinking about doing statistics...
© ExcelUser, Inc. Copyright © 2004 - 2020 by Charles W. Kyd, all rights reserved.