Excel University Blog
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Functions
I was recently asked how to find the last occurrence of a value in a column. Although there are multiple ways to accomplish this, in this post, I’ll talk about how to use XLOOKUP. Objective Before we jump into Excel, let’s confirm our objective. Let’s say we have a bunch of transactions that look like…
There are times I need to quickly convert a quantity from one unit of measure to another (inch, foot), or from one system of measurement to another (metric, imperial). For example, when I am entering meals into MyFitnessPal, preparing a meal in the kitchen, or working on a project in the garage. When I need…
Microsoft just announced a new Excel function called STOCKHISTORY. This function provides a way to retrieve historical stock quotes directly into Excel. As it is being rolled out over time, I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. But as soon as my copy of Excel receives the function, I’ll write a post about…
In this post, I’ll answer a question I received from Sara about how to create a drop down with each worksheet name and reference it in a formula to retrieve values from the selected sheet. As this is Excel, there are a variety of alternatives to accomplish this. In this post, I’ll demonstrate one such…
I recently wrote an article for the Minnesota Society of CPAs about a technique that helps you create budgets faster. Even if you don’t prepare budgets, the underlying features and functions used can be applied elsewhere. In summary, we use a data validation drop-down to provide several Budget Methods. Once you select a budget method…
Let’s say you need to take an amount and split it evenly into monthly columns. For example, perhaps you need to recognize revenue over time. Or, perhaps you have spent some money and you need to allocate the expense over time. There are other illustrations, but the basic idea is that you have a total…
Microsoft has been hard at work updating Excel’s calculation engine. Depending on the version of Excel you’re using, you either have—or will have when you update—access to some capabilities that are sure to change how you think about and use Excel. I wrote about one of the new capabilities called Dynamic Arrays for California CPA…
Have you ever written a formula that repeats the same expression multiple times? I know I have. One simple example is IF((A1-B1)=0,0,A1-B1). Notice how the expression A1-B1 is used twice? This is a simple example of duplicating an expression within a formula. In general, we want to try to remove/minimize such duplication to make the…
XLOOKUP is the next-gen lookup function designed to address the limitations of VLOOKUP and related workarounds. It combines the capabilities of numerous functions including VLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, HLOOKUP, and IFERROR. Many have asked me to teach this via webinar. So, I created this short webinar that covers the basics 🙂 This on-demand webinar is about…
Let’s say you measure something with a duration that can span multiple days. For example, a hotel guest can check in for multiple days, a patient can be in a hospital for multiple days, a widget can be in a specific manufacturing stage for multiple days, a book can be checked out for multiple days,…