Excel University Blog

Read on for in-depth articles, tutorials, and videos. Search or browse for specific topics. Be sure to subscribe if you'd like to be notified when we write something new.

Posts

How to Square a Number in Excel

By Excel University | January 10, 2023 |

Squaring numbers are helpful in all different kinds of calculations, but it can be a tedious task if you have a lot of data. However, Excel’s tools and functions make it pretty simple! There are four easy ways to square a number in Excel: two that utilize functions and two that don’t.  Here’s how to…

Four Ways to Select Every Other Row in Excel

By Excel University | January 3, 2023 |

Selecting every other row in Excel can be helpful. Aside from making it easy to get rid of duplicate rows, it can also be a great way to highlight important information, make the data easier to read with formatting, and more. However … if you’ve ever tried to select every other row in Excel, you…

Skipping Excel 3

By Jeff Lenning | December 13, 2022 |

In this third and final post of the Skipping Excel series, we’ll connect all the dots and use Zapier to complete our automation. In case you are just joining the series … I’ve been documenting my journey for getting my e-commerce sales into QuickBooks Online. In an ideal situation, there would be a direct built-in…

Skipping Excel 2

By Jeff Lenning | November 29, 2022 |

In this post, the second in the Skipping Excel series, I’ll walk you through the details of the next iteration of this process. In case you are just joining this series, in the first post Skipping Excel 1, I reviewed the manual process of getting my e-commerce transactions into QuickBooks Online. It took about 30…

Skipping Excel 1

By Jeff Lenning | November 22, 2022 |

Excel is used for many different tasks, such as budgeting, reporting, comparing bank statements, and other things. It can also be used to export, clean, and import data between two separate systems. For example, suppose you export transactions from an e-commerce system, open them in Excel, tidy up the information a little, and then transfer…

What’s #REF in Excel and How to Fix It

By Excel University | November 15, 2022 |

When a formula contains an invalid cell or range reference, the #REF! error is displayed. #REF! in Excel is short for reference, and you’ll usually see it pop up when cells that were referenced in formulas are deleted. They can be a nuisance, but they’re usually pretty simple to find and fix. Here’s how to…

How to Clean Data in Excel – 8 Easy Ways

By Excel University | November 8, 2022 |

Man sitting at a desk with an open computer learning How to Clean Data in Excel

CalCPA Article Instant Reconciliations

By Jeff Lenning | November 1, 2022 |

When you have two different lists that you need to compare, how do you do it? For example, you want to identify which items on one list (e.g., a check register) appear on the other (e.g. bank activity)? I used to print both lists, grab a ruler and go down row by row ticking items…

How to Count Cells That Contain Specific Text

By Excel University | October 25, 2022 |

Have you ever wanted to see how many times a certain text string pops up in a set of data? While you can use Ctrl + F to find values, you may need a search feature that’s more discerning and responsive.  Luckily, there are several (much faster!) ways you can count cells that contain specific…

How to Hide Formulas in Excel (And Protect Your Worksheets)

By Excel University | October 18, 2022 |

Let’s say you’ve been building a worksheet to share with your coworkers. When you share it, they’ll be able to see, edit, and change everything that’s in the workbook, including your formulas. It can sometimes be a little too easy to make those changes accidentally. That’s why it’s a good idea to lock and even…