Excel University Blog
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Functions
In this post, we explore a way to pull budget values into an income statement exported from QuickBooks, and demonstrate how to handle the fact that the extract uses new columns to indent. Overview When the budget and actual data reside in the same application, creating a variance report is easy. However, when the actual…
This post explores macro-free methods for using Excel’s data validation feature to create an in-cell drop-down that displays choices depending on the value selected in a previous in-cell drop-down. Overview As with just about anything in Excel, there are several ways to achieve the goal. This post explores three such solutions, and if you have a…
This post discusses ways to retrieve aggregated values from a table based on the column labels. Overview Beginning with Excel 2007, we can store data in a table with the Insert > Table Ribbon command icon. If you haven’t yet explored this incredible feature, please check out this CalCPA Magazine article Excel Rules. Frequently, we…
If you have ever tried to use a VLOOKUP function with two or more criteria columns, you’ve quickly discovered that it just wasn’t built for that purpose. Fortunately, there is another function that may work as an alternative to VLOOKUP depending on what you want to return. Video Multi-Column Lookup Objective First, let’s confirm our…
In this post, we’ll explore a formula-based approach that does not use VBA to find the last occurrence of a delimiter and use it to retrieve the lowest sub account from a Quickbooks account list in Excel. When I was doing some research for a project I had a couple of years ago, I was…
Excel Balance Sheet This post illustrates how to create a financial statement such as a balance sheet with built-in Excel features and functions. Our primary objective is to build a workbook that efficiently pulls values from the trial balance into the balance sheet. Overview For the purpose of this post, let’s assume we have a…
If you have ever needed to allocate an amount over time, and split the amount into monthly columns based on the number of days, you’ll quickly realize that this simple idea is tricky to actually implement. As with anything in Excel, there are many ways to accomplish this task, and this post walks through one…
If you have ever tried to return a value that physically lies to the left of the lookup column, you quickly realize that this task is difficult to accomplish with the VLOOKUP function. This is a perfect time to move beyond the VLOOKUP function and explore the INDEX and MATCH functions. Note: depending on your…
Have you ever wanted to allow the workbook user to pick the math that a formula should use? This post explores the CHOOSE function, which, among other things, enables us to allow the user to pick the math. CHOOSE Before jumping right into the function’s syntax, let’s get a little context. Let’s say that we…
Microsoft Excel 2013 offers many new features and functions worth exploring. This post provides a few highlights and a link to my May-2013 CalCPA Technology and Business Resource Guide article, “Spreadsheet Nerdiness” which goes into more detail. Summary Design With the exception of some minor cosmetic changes and some animations, the design is similar to…