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Financial Analysis

Articles about how to use Excel to learn more about your company’s finances.

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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?

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - July 26, 2022 0

(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 Monthly Trends with Centered Moving Averages

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - October 18, 2021 0

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the expected increase of electric vehicles in the US. That made me wonder...

Your Return On Equity ratio is a key indicator of financial health. This report lets you show the components of that ratio in a unique Excel display.

Map Your Financial Health With an Excel DuPont Dashboard

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

Management reporting is all about communication. Reporting Return On Equity (ROE) is a case in point. The ROE financial ratio is a key measure of...

How to Reproduce Your Excel Work Across Many Categories, Part 3 of 3

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

Part 1 of this series about analytical spawning with Excel described how Excel users often need to spawn one model or report across many related...

Here's how to apply an Excel report, forecast, or analysis for one product, division, or other categoy to any number of categories. Part 2 of 3.

How to Reproduce Your Excel Work Across Many Categories, Part 2 of 3

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

As I explained in Part 1 of this series, Excel users often need to apply many instances of data to one model or forecast, list...

Here's how we Excel users can replicate one report or analysis across many similar categories of data, like regions, products, departments, and so on.

How to Reproduce Your Excel Work Across Many Categories, Part 1 of 3

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

A member of an Excel forum recently asked how to solve a problem that many Excel users face in various forms. In his particular case,...

Here's how to set up Future- and Present-Value formulas that allow compounding by using an interest rate and referencing cash flows and their dates.

Find Future and Present Values from Scheduled Cash Flows in Excel

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

"I would like a Future Value command similar to the XIRR and XNPV functions, which allow compounding by using an interest rate and referencing...

The Rule of 72 is a guesstimate of how long it will take an investment at a specific interest rate to double in value. But how accurate is it? Ask Excel.

Excel and the Rule of 72

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - February 17, 2020 0

I recently learned that my son—who's an avid amateur investor—had never heard of the Rule of 72. The rule of 72, I texted him, says...

Here's how to use Excel to figure out whether you're making or losing money on the cash you borrow, why it matters, and what you can do about it.

Weighing Your Debt Load

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - December 17, 2019 0

(Originally published in Inc Magazine.) I've talked to any number of business owners over the years who felt buried under a mountain of debt. But...

Both IPMT and ISPMT return the interest payment for a given period for a loan or investment. But Microsoft's help topics haven't made their differences clear. Here's what you need to know about these two financial functions.

How to Create Even-Payment and Straight-Line Amortization Tables in Excel

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - September 5, 2018 0

When you borrow money for a fixed period with periodic payments, you could have two types of loans: even-payment or straight-line. Microsoft recognizes those loan...

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Excel Flowbook Revolution

Getting Radical with Excel

Excel Data Plumbing Revolution Charley Kyd - January 5, 2024 0

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,...

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?

Financial Analysis Charley Kyd - July 26, 2022 0

(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

Aggregation Functions Charley Kyd - January 17, 2022 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...