Microsoft Excel is an often unappreciated piece of software; it’s not understood by many and has a reputation for being complex and powerful, which is why a lot of people avoid using it. The software might seem intimidating at first, but things get easier once you familiarize yourself with it. Knowing your way around Excel is very important for several reasons.
First of all, it can make your life much easier, especially if you’re a financial analyst or a student who works with a lot of numbers. There are many formulas and tools that existed in older versions of the software, but not many people were aware of that. There are also newer and updated tools that came with updated versions of Excel, but some users didn’t know how to use them and others weren’t even aware of their existence. If you want to know more about these advanced formulas and formats then make sure to check out the list below.
IF with AND Functions
If you’re a financial analyst who often spends their time creating balance sheets and cash flow or income statements then you know how difficult it can be to insert this kind of information into a program like Excel. Based on this shared difficulty, the creators of the software have created the Financial model tool, which can help you organize balance sheets, as well as give you an estimate or an overview of your business’ performance in the future. For instance, you can use the IF with AND statements when you want to create an equation that can compare a value with your expectations. An example of this would be checking for delivery with a delivery date. You could set up your formula to check IF one cell in your sheet was marked delivered, AND IF another cell contained a delivery date (or was not empty). IF the two expectations were true, the formula could insert ‘CLOSED’ into a third cell. This allows for data to come from many users of your system, and the sheet to be automatically updated by the IF/AND formula.
Conversion Tools
If you’re a financial analyst or a student who uses this software often, then you will have definitely encountered a file that needed to be converted into an Excel sheet, or a sheet that needed to be converted into a PDF file. You’ve probably looked around for simple conversion tools that can aid you with this but you either didn’t find any useful ones or found ones that weren’t free. The experts from YouPDF advise Excel users to make sure that they use a program that will not only help them convert sheets into files but also help them with Cloud conversion and more. Also, you need to know that it works in reverse too, so if you want to convert a PDF file into an Excel sheet, you need it to be able to do that or risk corrupting your data.
Index Match
The older versions of Microsoft Excel had several tools that were functional, yet they were also a little slow, challenging, and even difficult to use. This is exactly why the newer versions of the software have replaced formulas such as HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP with the index match formula, which is a much easier and advanced method that anyone can use. This equation is made up of two parts; index and match. The MATCH part of the function helps you to find a cell number based on row or column.
For example, let’s say you have a table somewhere in your spreadsheet with names and ages, and you want to pull out this data as the table changes. You can use =MATCH followed by the name you are searching, a cell column range in your table (the list of names), and 0 for an exact match. The formula will search the column and tell you which row the name is in. You can do this again for the AGE column, to find out what row the ages are on (just change the cell range and the search parameter). By using the formula twice, you can find out where the age of Bill is (if you are searching using Bill). From there, you can use INDEX to pull a value from a selected cell. Now that you know where the value is, you can search the entire table, and use the numbers from MATCH to pull the age and place it where you want.
The SUMIF and COUNTIF Function
COUNTIF and SUMIF are powerful tools for counting instances and totals in your spreadsheet. Let’s look at an example. If you own a store and you sell balls, you may want to count your sales by year and total. In one column, you have the year, one column has the color of the ball, and the third has the total sales. First, you want to check how many years had a blue ball sale. For this, you will use COUNTIF. =COUNTIF(the cell range(the color of balls), the match(the word ‘blue’, or a link to another cell). This formula will return the instances of the word blue in the cell range giving you the number of years you sold a blue ball.
Next, you want to count the total number of blue balls sold. You are going to use SUMIF. Your formula will look similar. =SUMIF(the same cell range as above, the same matching parameter, the cell range of total balls sold that year). This formula will check when a blue ball was sold, and then it will take the total and add it to a running total. Once all addition is done, the total will be presented in the cell.
Microsoft Excel is a tool that can be easy to use if you understand the powerful formulas, and there are many tutorials out there to help you achieve this learning. If you’re familiar with the basics, that’s great, this means that you’re ready for our tips and tricks. Go out there and practice with IF with AND functions, The SUMIF and COUNTIF, and the Index Match formula, and you will be creating powerful spreadsheets in no time
