CC Excel Course Manual 6628adb6d0d23

Excel Crash Course
wallstreetprep.com
EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Welcome to Excel
Licensed to Pranav Suresh. Email address: prnvsuresh@gmail.com

Introduction
• This crash course is designed to teach you how to use Excel 2010, 2013, and 2016.
• This self-paced course starts by assuming you have never used Excel before and quickly
progresses through Excel’s most useful and powerful features, such that even Excel “power
users” will benefit from the middle to late drills.
• If you find the beginning chapters to be too basic, feel free to fly right through them until
you get to the chapters that reflect your Excel knowledge.

Excel 2016 vs.
2013 vs. 2010 The 2010 Ribbon
• This course applies to

Excel 2010, Excel 2013
and Excel 2016 users.
• The versions are

The 2013 Ribbon
virtually identical, but
we will encounter a
couple of differences.
• When those differences

emerge during the
course, we will identify The 2016 Ribbon
them.

Keyboard vs. The Mouse
• Novice Excel users depend on the mouse

to perform the majority of tasks in
this application.
• However, since professionals like financial

analysts spend significant amounts of time
with Excel, learning keyboard shortcuts and
more advanced functionality in Excel will
greatly improve the efficiency and quality of
the modeling output.

Keyboard vs. The Mouse (cont’d)
Almost everything that can The best way to learn these Initially, learning all of the
be done in Excel using a shortcuts is to literally useful shortcuts will be
mouse can also be done disconnect the mouse from frustrating, but it is
using the keyboard your computer and work absolutely worth the time to
shortcuts. Accordingly, this through this Excel module learn. The more shortcuts
Excel module has been using only the keyboard. If you know, the more efficient
developed around keyboard you do this, you will come you will be in Excel.
shortcuts. out of this program a more
efficient Excel user.

Take the Time to Explore Excel
• If you are completely new to Excel, this

chapter will introduce the standard sections
making up the Excel spreadsheet layout.
• If you have used Excel in the past, go

directly to the next chapter.

Take the Time to Explore Excel (cont’d)
• As you go through the discussion of each • Don’t worry if certain icons or tab
section of the Excel spreadsheet, take the contents may not make sense right
time to explore it in the Excel file – open now; we’ll cover many in the
up each tab (when appropriate), scroll up subsequent chapters.
and down the worksheet, etc. – to get a
• And of course, use your keyboard, not
better idea of the makeup of Excel. The
your mouse, as your navigation guide.
first step in mastering Excel is to gain
familiarity with its various features and
functions and where to find them.
Before proceeding to the next slide,
open up a blank Excel file.

The Start Screen in
Excel 2013 and
2016
• The first difference
between Excel 2013/16
and 2010 can be
observed immediately
upon startup.
• Unlike Excel 2010,

which takes you straight
to a blank Excel page on
Startup, Excel 2013/16
has a Start screen which
shows recent files and
allows you to go online
to find Excel templates.

Excel Basics
• Name Box – Tells you what cell you are in.

Name box
• Formula Bar – When you insert a formula
into a cell and hit return, the cell will show
you the output. The Formula Bar, however,
will show you the formula. Formula bar

Excel Basics (cont’d)
• Worksheets – An Excel file is called a

workbook; you start with 3 worksheets in a
workbook in Excel 2010 (only 1 in 2013),
but you can add/delete more (Alt I W).
• Move back and forth between the Click to add
worksheets in a workbook by pressing worksheets or
Ctrl PageUp or Ctrl PageDown. hit alt i w
• The active worksheet is highlighted in

Excel (see Sheet1 to the right).
Worksheets

Excel Basics (cont’d)
• Columns are alphabetically labeled (A, B,

C, etc.).
• Rows are numerically labeled (1, 2, 3, etc.).
Rows Columns

Main Tabs
• Although we focus on
shortcuts, virtually all
commands, functions,
and Excel features can
be accessed through the
task-oriented tabs
which organize them
into eight logical
categories:

Main Tabs (cont’d)
To access the features in the ribbon, you have several options:
1. Press Alt or F10 and the appropriate letter associated with each tab. Once you are in a
specific tab, press the appropriate letter associated with a specific feature or task. This
option will work for all commands. For example, open a new blank Excel file by
hitting Alt F N.

Main Tabs (cont’d)
2. Many commands have alternate shortcuts using the Ctrl, Shift, Alt, or Function buttons (or
a combination of two out of the four, typically). For example, we could have also opened a
new file by hitting Ctrl N – these types of shortcuts you just have to commit to memory, but
it is worth it.

The File Tab
• Many Excel features (Open file, Save file, Print file, etc.) are located in the File tab.
• Excel also has alternative keyboard shortcuts (using Ctrl) for many of these features.
• Open a file:
• Alt F O
• Ctrl O
• Save a file:
• Alt F S
• Ctrl S
• Print a file:
• Alt F P
• Ctrl P
Within each of the eight main tabs
you will find all of Excel’s features,
logically grouped by commands.
For example, under the Home tab,
all commands related to Font are
grouped together.

Toolbars
Navigating to the toolbars without

the mouse:
• Hit Alt and the appropriate letter (or

use the right/left arrow keys) to get to
the desired tab. Once there, use the Tab
and Shift Tab keys to navigate around.
• If you give it a try, you’ll find that it is

probably not the most efficient way to go.
The good news is that many commands
in these tabs have quick keyboard
shortcuts (Ctrl B to bold, for example),
which we’ll be learning.
The Home Tab
Includes most formatting

properties:
• Font type, size, and color
• Background color
• Text/cell alignment
• Changing currency,
decimal, percent formats
• Inserting, deleting, and

hiding rows and columns
• Adjusting columns and

rows width
• Inserting, deleting, and

renaming worksheets

Accessing Settings
(Excel Options)
• File > Options (Alt F T).
• Alt T O works too (don’t

2010 vs. 2013 vs. 2016
ask why).
The Excel Options forms in 2013
& 2016 are virtually identical
(minor changes from 2010)

File > Info >
Password
Protecting Files
• You can password
protect files “Encrypt
with Password.”
• You can also protect

individual worksheets
so that people can’t see
or edit formulas
“Protect Current Sheet.”

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Excel Basics

Practice by Doing
• We are now ready to delve further into Excel contents through some basic Excel exercises, a
series of progressive steps building off one another.
• Excel can be mastered only through practice, and the following exercises provide such
hands-on application. As you go through this chapter, make sure to replicate the steps in
your own Excel file.
• While the first step in mastering Excel is to gain familiarity with its various features and
functions and where to find them, the second step is finding the most efficient way to use
them. Accordingly, try repeating certain commands introduced in each step multiple times
to get them “under your belt.”
• As you go through the various steps, resist the initial temptation to use a mouse. Use the
Excel shortcuts list to help you.

Practice by Doing (cont’d)
• Most keyboard shortcuts involve Alt or Ctrl keys, so it is

crucial that you understand how to use each of them. Alt commands
• When using keyboard shortcuts involving Alt, you can Most commands involving
press each key and let go; that is, you do NOT need to hold Alt are shortcuts to the
down the Alt key as you press the F and A keys. commands and functions
inside the eight default Main
• You can think of the above ‘Save As’ shortcut as consisting Tabs.
of the following three distinct steps (do each of them
For example, a keyboard
slowly to see what happens):
shortcut to ‘Save As’ a file is
• Press Alt (and let go) – Activates the Main Tabs Alt F A (File > Save As).
• Press F (and let go) – Opens the Office Button menu
• Press A (and let go) – Brings up the ‘Save As’ screen

Practice by Doing (cont’d)
• Most commands involving Ctrl are shortcuts

that have been automated by default to In Ctrl commands, the Ctrl key must
make Excel more efficient and user-friendly. be held down as you press the other
key in the shortcut sequence (‘B’ in
• For example, a keyboard shortcut that
the previous example).
makes contents of a cell bold is Ctrl B.
Notice how this is different from Alt
commands which involve “distinct
steps” (pressing one key after, not in
conjunction, with another).

Input Data Exercise
If you haven’t already, please open a blank Excel file.
1. Within the worksheet you just opened, without the mouse, using only the arrow keys on
your keyboard, go to B2 and type in the text ‘Revenues’ and hit the down arrow key on the
keyboard in order to exit the cell and move to the next cell down (cell B3).
2. In cell B3, type in the text ’Cost of Goods Sold’ and again, hit the down arrow key to move
down to cell B4.
3. In cell B4 type in the text ‘Gross Profit’.

Input Data (cont’d) Exercise
4. Again, using the arrow keys move to cell C1 and type ’2005’.
5. In cell D1 type ‘2006’, E1 type ‘2007’, F1 type ‘2008’.
6. Now populate the with the numbers below:
Period 2005 2006 2007 2008

Revenues 100 125 150 175
Cost of Goods Sold 50 60 70 80
Gross Profit

Widening Columns & Rows
Notice how the text in column B was cut off when we input The following shortcuts also work
data into column C – it’s because the text in column B is too
long, so we need to widen Column B. Operation In Excel
1. Highlight Column B by pressing Ctrl Spacebar. Then press Auto-fit column

Alt O C A
Alt H O I to auto-fit the column width. width
2. If you want a column to have a certain width, press Alt H O Column width
W and enter the desired width (Excel’s default column Alt O C W
selection
width setting is 8.43).
Auto-fit row height Alt O R A
3. Analogously, to expand a desired row, press Shift Spacebar,
and then press Alt H O A to auto-fit the row height. Row height selection Alt O R E
4. If you want a row to have a certain height, press Alt H O H

and enter the desired height (Excel’s default row height
setting is 12.75).
Calculations & Formulas
• Excel formulas start with the equal sign (=).

Additional Operations in Excel
• The = sign tells Excel that the information
Operation In Excel
that will follow the = sign should be treated
as a formula and not as plain text.
Addition and
+ and -
• Once you type in the = sign, use the arrow subtraction
keys to navigate around the Excel workbook
Multiplication *
to find the cells you need for your formula.
The signs for formulas are intuitive in Excel Division /
and are as follows.
Exponent ^
• In cell C4, use the = sign to write a formula
that calculates 2005 Gross Profit. Hit Enter Grouping operations ()
when you are done writing the formula.
Copying & Pasting
• Copy the formula in cell C4 and paste it into cells D4 through F4: press the up-arrow key to
hover over cell C4 and press Ctrl C (shortcut for Copy). Now, holding down the Shift button,
use the right arrow key to highlight cells D4 through F4.
• Now hit Ctrl V (shortcut for Paste). Notice that Excel automatically pasted the formulas –
not the output – through all the cells, and as we moved the formula into columns to the right
of column C, the cells that are being referenced in the formulas also moved to the right.

Format Cells (Ctrl 1)
• Notice how the text in column B is aligned to

the left, while the numbers in columns C
through F are aligned to the right.
• Excel aligns numbers to the right and text to

the left by default. You can, of course, always
override any default formatting by pressing
Ctrl 1 to access the ‘Format Cells’ menu.
• Hitting Ctrl 1 from an Excel worksheet pulls up

the ‘Format Cells’ menu, from where any
formatting that Excel is capable of can be
applied on the active cell or highlighted cell
region. In the Alignment tab, for example, users
can change the alignment of text.
Navigating the ‘Format Cells’ Menu
• After hitting Ctrl 1 to pull up the ‘Format

Cells’ menu, you can navigate around tabs
by hitting Ctrl Tab
• Each category within a tab can be accessed

by pressing Alt and the appropriate
underlined letter, or by hitting Tab to move
clockwise and Shift Tab to move
counterclockwise
• When on the desired tab, For example,

within the alignment tab, horizontal
alignment can be accessed through Alt H
and vertical alignment through Alt V
Formatting
Excel 2013/16: Add 2 worksheets to your workbook before proceeding (Alt I W)
• Press Ctrl Page Down to go from Sheet1 to Sheet2 within the workbook and create the
following matrix without using the mouse. Remember the following:
• Auto-fit the width of Column B.
• Copy and paste the formulas across the appropriate cells in row 4 – by using the Shift
Right Arrow key (not the mouse!)

Formatting (cont’d)
Format all numbers to 1 decimal, thousands

should be separated by commas, while negative
numbers should appear in parenthesis:
• Hit Ctrl 1 to open the ‘Format Cells’ menu.
• Within the Number tab, hit the Tab key and scroll
down the category menu to the ‘Number’ category.
• Press the Tab key again to select the 1 decimal

place preference.
• Select the comma separator option.
• Select the (1,234.0) treatment of negative numbers.
• Press Enter to exit to format cells menu.

Formatting (cont’d)
1. Bold row 4 (Shift Spacebar and then Ctrl B).
2. Input cells C2 through F3 should be blue.

• Hint: The ‘Font’ tab under the ‘Format Cells’ menu – don’t use the mouse!
3. Insert a border line below the year column headers.

• Hint: The ‘Border‘ tab under the ‘Format Cells’ menu.

Referencing Other Worksheets
We are now going to consolidate both matrices in Sheet 3:
• Copy and Paste the row and column headers from Sheet2 into Sheet3.
• In cell C2, press = then holding the Ctrl key press Page Up until you reach Sheet1. Within Sheet1, use the
arrow keys to hover over cell C2.
• Press the + key (Shift =) and then hit Ctrl Page Down to go to Sheet2 and then again, using the arrow keys
hover over C2. Your edit box should now have the following formula inside: =Sheet1! C2+Sheet2! C2.
• Hit Enter. Notice that once you hit enter, Excel takes you back to Sheet3, where it has added up C2 from both
Sheet1 and Sheet2.
• Now hit Ctrl C to copy this cell and using shift and the arrow keys, hover over the cell input range (C2:F3) and
then hit Ctrl V to paste.
• Calculate the gross profit in row 4 as you did in both earlier exercises.
• Format the cell range as you did in the last exercise using the ‘Format Cells’ menu.
Paste Special
• Highlight the already-formatted cell range in Sheet2,

press Ctrl C to copy and then highlight the corresponding
cell range in Sheet3 and press Alt H V S T (or Alt E S T).
• This is the shortcut to “Paste Special”. What is special

about it is that it only applies the formatting style – not
the formulas – onto the target cells.
• Within the “Paste Special” menu (Alt H V S or Alt E S),

you can choose to paste specific features of a cell range,
not just its formats. Remember, you must first copy a cell
range in order to reach the “Paste Special” menu.
• Paste special can be quite powerful and can do things Paste Special Formats is the equivalent of the
you may not have expected - much more on this in the paintbrush icon:
next section.

Navigation Drills
1. Open a new blank workbook (Ctrl N) and then switch back to Sheet3 of the existing
workbook (Ctrl Tab)
2. Move from Sheet3 to Sheet2 and back to Sheet3 by using the appropriate keyboard
shortcuts:
• Move left: Ctrl Page Up
• Move right: Ctrl Page Down

Navigation Drills (cont’d)
3. Navigating within the spreadsheet.

• Using the arrow keys, go to cell B2 of Sheet3.
• Go from B2 directly to the final projection of revenues (cell F2) by clicking Ctrl Right
Arrow. Note: In Excel, you can go to the end of any contiguous range by clicking Ctrl or
any appropriate arrow.
• From cell F2, highlight cells F2 through cell F4 by clicking Shift Right Arrow. You will
need to press the Right Arrow key twice in order to reach cell F4. If you would like to
highlight cells F2:F4 simultaneously, click Shift Ctrl Right Arrow.
• With cells F2:F4 highlighted, highlight the entire table B2:F4 by clicking Shift Ctrl
Right Arrow.

Navigation Drills (cont’d)
1. Still within Sheet3, highlight all the cells in the worksheet by pressing Ctrl A.
2. Move Sheet3 to precede Sheet1 in the workbook by pressing Alt H O M, and hit Enter.
3. Change the zoom size to 75% by pressing Alt W Q, (or Alt V Z) selecting 75% with the
arrow keys and hit Enter.
4. Change the zoom size back to your default size by pressing Alt W Q again, and selecting the
original zoom size and hit Enter.

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Formatting &
Navigation

Freezing & Splitting Panes
• Excel worksheets often become too large to

allow users to view all their contents on
one screen.
• Accordingly, ‘Freezing Panes’ and ‘Splitting

Panes’ options provide users with the
flexibility to select specific rows and
columns that always remain visible when
scrolling in the worksheet.
• Panes are defined as portions of the

worksheet that are bounded and separated
by vertical and/or horizontal bars.

Freezing Panes
To Freeze Panes
• Click the cell below the desired row and to

the right of the desired column where you
want to freeze panes and hit Alt W F F.
• To unfreeze panes, press Alt W F F again.

Freezing Panes (cont’d)
While freezing panes

allows users to
select specific rows
and columns that
always remain visible
when scrolling in the
worksheet, splitting
panes allows users to
scroll in both areas of
the worksheet, while
rows and columns in
the non-scrolled area
remain visible.
Splitting Panes
To Split Panes:
• Click the cell below the desired row

and to the right of the desired
column where you want to split
panes and hit Alt W S.
• To un-split panes, click Alt W S

again.
• Press F6 to move from pane to

pane in a clockwise direction; press
Shift F6 to move from pane to pane
in a counter-clockwise direction.

Drill: Entering and Editing Data Drills
The Undo and Redo commands
1. Still within Sheet3, go to cell F4 and press the Delete key.
2. Undo the delete by hitting Ctrl Z
3. Redo the delete by pressing Ctrl Y
Undo (Ctrl Z) is very useful; commit it to memory.

Drill – Entering and Editing Data Drills
Manipulating data inside a cell
1. Go to cell C4 and hit F2. F2 is the command that puts you “inside” a cell.
2. Within cell C4, press Shift Left Arrow until ‘C3’ is highlighted.
3. Hit Shift Ctrl Left Arrow and you’ll notice that C2 is instantly highlighted. Notice that it is
a similar idea to editing outside cells: Shift Arrow Keys highlight characters one at a time,
while Shift Ctrl Arrow Keys highlight contiguous ranges of characters within the cell.
4. Now hit Backspace to delete the highlighted region, and while still within the cell hit Esc
to cancel everything we have done so far. Within cells, the Esc key is very useful when you
will be working with complex worksheets because it cancels unintended cell entries.

Drill – Cell Edit vs. Point Mode: Hitting F2 a Second Time
• Go back to C4 and press F2, putting you

“inside” again Pressing the F2 key once:
• Now try to add cell C6 by typing + and using the • Shows the components of the
arrow keys – you’ll find that you are stuck – hit formula you created earlier
F2 again to get “unstuck” and then use the • Puts you inside a cell and
Arrow Keys enables you to navigate through
it to edit the existing cell data
• Pressing F2 again activates the cursor and
enables you to move to different cells, Pressing the F2 key twice:
worksheets, and even other open Excel files (you • Activates the cursor and enables
should see a dotted border when you move to you to move to different cells,
any of these locations) in order to insert worksheets, and even other
additional formula components into the original open Excel files
cell’s pre-existing formula (C4 in our example)
Drill – Deleting and Clearing Cell Data
• You can delete the contents of a cell simply by hitting Delete on an active cell.
• Important! Hitting delete does NOT delete the formatting in the cell – this is retained, so
next time you type a number into that cell, it will retain the formatting of the originally
deleted data. It also won’t delete a comment that may exist in the cell. So how do your truly
delete a cell?
• With your cursor on the desired cell, hit Alt H E (Home Tab Right Arrow Clear). From a
dropdown menu, choose the appropriate action:
• (Alt H E) A = Clears ALL contents of the cell (values, formulas, and format)
• (Alt H E) F = Clears the FORMAT of the cell only
• (Alt H E) C = Clears the CONTENTS of the cell only (same as hitting Delete)
• (Alt H E) M = Clears the COMMENTS of the cell only
Drill – Right and Down Fills
• In Sheet3, highlight the cell range D2:F4 and hit Delete.
• Now highlight cell range C2:F4 and hit Ctrl R.

• Ctrl R tells Excel to look at the leftmost column of a range of highlighted cells and copy
and paste the inputs and formulas in that column to all the columns to the right.
• Ctrl D does the same thing for rows that Ctrl R does for columns, telling Excel to look at
the topmost row of a range of highlighted cells and to copy and paste the inputs and
formulas in that row down to all the rows below it.

Drill – Inserting Comments
• Still in Sheet3, go to cell E4 and insert a comment that reads “Gross Profit was negative this
year due to a strategic restructuring undertaken by the company” by typing Shift F2.
• Hit Esc twice to exit the comment area.
• To edit an existing comment, go to the relevant cell and press Shift F2.
• To delete a comment, press Alt H E A M (or Alt E A M).

Drill – Inserting Rows Exercise
• Go back to Sheet2 (Ctrl Page

Down) and input data in
rows 5 and 6 as pictured to
the right.
• Remember to apply
formatting as in the original
exercise using only the
keyboard.
• Keep in mind that the Net

Profit cells should be
Add 2 new rows with
calculations, not inputs. data as shown.

Drill – Inserting Rows (cont’d) Exercise
• Let’s say we want to add a row below operating costs for non-operating costs. To do this, go
to any cell in the row below operating costs (Row 6) and press Alt I R, or highlight the row
below operating costs by pressing Shift Spacebar, and then press Ctrl Shift + to insert the
new row. A new row will appear.
• Input the new data as shown below and modify the net profit calculation accordingly.
Remember to format appropriately for inputs (paste special formats may be helpful here).
Insert row
Recalculate
as shown.
as shown.

Drill – Inserting Columns Exercise
• We now add a column for 2004. To do this, go to any cell in column C and press Alt I C, or
highlight column C by pressing Ctrl Spacebar and then insert the column by pressing Ctrl
Shift +. Insert the new data as shown by copying (Ctrl C) and pasting (Ctrl V) the formulas
in rows 4 and 7, and hard-inputting blue cells as shown in the screenshot here.
Deleting rows and columns
• Alt H D R (row); Alt H D C (column)
• Highlight row/column and press Ctrl -
Insert column as shown.

More on Copying and Pasting
• Ctrl V pastes ALL cell attributes: When we copied and

pasted the formulas from cell D4 to C4, Excel not only
copied the formulas, but also the formatting. Had we
had a comment in that cell, Excel would have
automatically pasted it as well. Excel is programmed by
default to copy over all the attributes of a cell.
• This may not always be desirable to copy all
attributes. Perhaps a user wants to copy over just
comments, or just values, or just the formulas but
nothing else, etc.
• Paste Special (Ctrl C followed by Alt E S) lets the user

dictate the specific attributes of a cell or highlighted
region that should be pasted.
Paste Special
• Back in Sheet2, highlight the cell range B1:G7, copy it (Ctrl C), and paste only the formulas
(not the formatting) into B13:G20 by pressing Alt E S F. Now hit Ctrl Z to undo the paste
and paste only the formatting (not the formulas) into B13:G20 by pressing Alt E S T.

Paste Special – Operators
• In addition to pasting specific combinations of formulas, formats, and values, the paste special feature
allows users to operate on multiple values in exactly the same way.
• Suppose you have a list of dollar prices (see below) quoted to you in thousands, but you wish to see them
quoted in ones (e.g., you want to convert $450 to $450,000).
• In another cell, enter the number 1000. Copy this cell, then highlight your list of prices. Press Alt E S M.
This will multiply each dollar price on your list by 1000.
TAKE DIRECTLY FROM VIDEO

Paste Special – Transpose
• Another useful paste special feature is the “transpose” feature.
• It allows users to convert a vertical list of data into a horizontal list of data, and vice versa.
• Using the same set of data as in the prior slide, highlight the vertical list of prices.
• Move your cursor outside of the list range (to cell C3 in our case). Press Alt E S E. Your list of
prices should now be listed horizontally on a single row.
Be careful when applying a paste

special transpose on formulas.
Paste special transpose will
transpose relative cell references.

Drills – Cut and Paste
• Back in Sheet 2, highlight cell range B7:G7.

Notice that the formulas calculating net profit
• Cut the range by hitting Ctrl X (the highlighted
inside the row have not changed. Unlike when
range should now look “active” with dashed lines you copy and paste, when you cut and paste
bordering the cell range). cells, the formulas inside the pasted cells do
not change.
• Move the cursor down to cell B8 and paste the cut
range by pressing Ctrl V.
• The range has been relocated one

row down from its earlier position
in the worksheet.
Cut and paste from row 7

Ctrl Shortcuts
• Input the number 1254.34 into cell B10 of Sheet 2

and apply all the shortcuts listed below on this cell.
• After each shortcut, press Ctrl Z to undo the action

and move on to the next one.
Ctrl Shift ! Number format: 2 decimals, 000 separator 1,254.34

Ctrl Shift $ Currency format: 2 decimal places $1,254.34
Ctrl Shift % Percentage format with no decimal places 125434%
Ctrl Shift # Date format with the day, month, and year 7-Jun-03
Ctrl B Boldface 1,254.34
Ctrl I Italicize 1,254.34
Ctrl U Underline 1,254.34
Ctrl Shift _ Remove all borders 1,254.34

Naming Cells
• When formulas get longer and more complex, it is

sometimes (but not always!) useful to name cells
that are being referenced within the formulas.
• If in Sheet 2, for example, we had named cell C2

‘Revenues2004’ and cell C3 ‘COGS2004’, our formula
in cell C4 would read =Revenues2004–COGS2004.
Let’s do this now.
• Name cell C2 Revenues2004 by going to cell C2 and

pressing Ctrl F3, which will open the Name Manager.
Click ‘New’ and name cell C3 COGS2004 the
Caution: Naming cells is useful in very large
same way.
files where a specific cell is being referenced by
• Now any time you reference these newly named many other cells in long complicated formulas.
cells, they’ll show up as ‘Revenues2004’ and But there is a downside (see next page).
‘COGS2004’.
The Downside of Naming Cells and Ranges
• Names duplicate when copied to a new sheet (see error below)
• Harder to trace the calculations using F2
• Deleting names will cause errors in cells that reference the name

Anchoring Cells (F4)
• When you copy and paste a cell containing a formula from one cell to another, Excel
automatically shifts the cells being referenced in the formula.
• Sometimes, this is not desirable. That is why Excel allows you to anchor cells.
• Anchoring (or “Fixing”) cells that are being referenced in a formula tells Excel that even if
you copy the formula to another cell, the cells in the formula that are anchored should not
change.
• Let’s demonstrate this in an exercise on the following page…

Drill – Anchoring Cells
• In Sheet 2, re-label row 8 header

to “Pretax Profit”.
• Delete empty row 7 (Shift Spacebar

to highlight, then Ctrl to delete).
• Insert a row header called “Taxes” in

cell B8 and “Net Profit” in cell B9.
• Insert a formula in cell C9 to calculate

net profit (Pretax Profit – Taxes).
Notice that since there is nothing in the
taxes row yet, net profit simply equals
pretax profit for now.
• Insert a row header “Tax rate” in cell B11.

Drill – Anchoring Cells (cont’d)
• Insert a tax rate of 35% in cell C11. Pull up the

‘Format Cells’ menu (Ctrl 1) to format the cell
blue and as a % with 1 decimal place. You must
enter 0.35 in the cell in order to format as 35%.
• Calculate taxes in cell C8 as 2004 Pretax Profit

x Tax rate.
• Now, without doing anything else, try to copy

the formula in cell C8 (Ctrl C) and paste into
cells D8:G8 (Ctrl V). Notice that Excel returns
an output of 0. Look inside the formulas and
you’ll see that Excel is referencing cells to the right of C11.
• We want to have Excel stay on cell C11 to calculate the pretax income. Anchoring cells allows us to do this
without having to manually change formulas in each cell.

Drill – Anchoring Cells (cont’d)
• Undo the D8:G8 paste (Ctrl Z).

Note: if you went inside the cells,
Excel’s memory may have been
cleared and you can’t undo. If that
is the case, just highlight and delete
D8:G8.
• Move your cursor to cell C8 and

press F2 to get inside. Now
highlight C11 within the cell and
press F4.
Anchoring data inside a cell
• You will notice that Excel has placed two $ signs – one before You can choose whether to fix an entire cell (as we
the “C” and the other before the “11.” You have now anchored did in this drill: $C$11), or just fix the column ($C11)
cell C11. Press Enter. Try again to copy and paste the formula or just the row (C$11) by repeatedly pressing F4
into cell range D8:G8 and you’ll see that Excel is holding the until you find your preference. Try it out!
C11 reference fixed, and the calculations should now work.
Naming Worksheets
• By now, we know that by default, Excel Inserting & deleting worksheets

names its worksheets Sheet1, Sheet2,
• Add a new worksheet (Excel provides 3 in
Sheet3, etc.
Excel 2010 and 1 in Excel 2013 by
• Rename a worksheet you are working in default) by pressing Alt H I S.
by pressing Alt H O R which will highlight
• Conversely, delete a worksheet by
the current name of the worksheet. Type
pressing Alt E L.
in ‘Income Statement’ and press Enter.

Drill – Grouping Columns & Rows Exercise
There is often a need to hide rows and columns (for formatting and presentation purposes, or
simply because the data in those columns is old and need not be shown all the time).
To group columns:
• Hit Ctrl Spacebar to select the

desired column(s).
• Hit Shift Alt Right Arrow to create

the group.
• Hitting Alt A H will hide the columns.
• Hitting Alt A J will unhide the columns.
• Hitting Shift Alt Left Arrow will remove

the group.
Drill – Grouping Columns & Rows (cont’d) Exercise
To group rows:
• Hit Shift Spacebar to select the desired row.
• Follow steps 2-5 outlined in the previous slide.

Group – Don’t Hide
• Grouping columns and rows through the steps • In larger spreadsheets, you can easily forget
mentioned in the previous slide allows users to which columns and rows you have hidden. Just
group any number of desired columns and rows as importantly, it also makes it difficult for
and is therefore very useful way to hide data that another person to audit your Excel analysis, so
users would still like to have, but not necessarily stick with grouping.
show to others.
• Another way to hide data is by hitting Alt H O U R

for rows and Alt H O U C for columns. Don’t ever
use this method. Why?
• Under this method, columns and rows are

hidden, but there are no indications (no minus or
plus signs as in the first method) as to their
location.

Drill – Grouping Worksheets Exercise
• If you would like to format data in the same

manner or enter the same data across multiple
sheets, Excel provides an efficient method to [Group] after the filename indicates that
accomplish this goal. By grouping multiple certain worksheets have been grouped.
worksheets, any data and formatting that you
would perform in one of the grouped
worksheets would automatically be reflected
in all of them.
All the worksheets have been grouped –
• To group worksheets: Hold down Ctrl Shift, their shading is lighter than usual. Any
press PageUp or PageDown to reach the data entry or formatting you now perform
worksheets you would like to group. All the in one of the grouped worksheets will be
reflected in the others.
grouped worksheets are highlighted and the
file name on top of the Excel screen should
show [Group] after it.

Drill – Ungrouping Worksheets
• Press Ctrl PageUp or Ctrl PageDown until

you reach one of the ungrouped Word of Caution
worksheets; this automatically ungroups all Grouping worksheets serves as an
of the previously-grouped sheets. efficient way of performing data
entry and formatting across multiple
• If you have grouped all worksheets,
sheets; however, be careful – if you do
pressing Ctrl PageUp or Ctrl PageDown
not ungroup worksheets before
just once (to get to another worksheet) starting to work in one of them, you
ungroups all of them. may override information in other
worksheets.

Auditing Cells
Good: F2 Better: Ctrl [ and Ctrl ]
• You have already learned one way to • Hitting Ctrl [ on a cell will highlight the
audit formulas: simply go to a desired cell precedent cell(s) – keep hitting Ctrl [ and
and hit the F2 key. Excel will highlight (in it will take you to the next precedent, and
different colors) all the cell components on an on.
of an existing formula present in that cell.
• Hitting Ctrl ] on a cell will do the same
thing but for dependent cells.

Excel’s Formula Auditor
• When formulas become more complex, involving a number of

cell references across different worksheets and even Excel files,
the formula auditing feature is helpful.
• Trace precedents (Alt M P): Trace cells that provide data to a

formula (For cell C2 in Sheet3, precedent cells are Sheet1!C2
and Sheet2!D2). A worksheet icon indicates that the precedent
cells are in another worksheet. Double clicking anywhere (with
a mouse) on the black arrow brings up the ‘Go To’ screen;
selecting either of the precedent cell locations and hitting ‘OK’
will take you there.
• Trace dependents (Alt M D): Trace formulas that reference a

particular cell. For cell C2, a dependent cell is C4 (that cell
references C2 in its formula).
• Remove trace arrows (Alt M A A).

Cell Alignment & Center
Across Selection

Go To Special

Conditional Formatting

Miscellaneous Tips
• Creating dynamic headers.
• Using TEXT for formatting numbers within text.
• Incorporating Alt Enter inside cells for breaks.

Creating Dynamic Headers, Custom
Formatting & the TEXT Function

More on Custom
Formatting

#Ref, #Div/0! & Other
Excel Errors

Find and Replace

Page Layout

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Date & Concatenation

Functions

Introduction to Excel Functions
• We have now completed our introduction to Excel

and are ready to get into the meaty parts of Excel –
the first being functions.
• Functions are pre-built combinations of operations in

Excel that facilitate spreadsheet analysis. In Excel,
there are over 300 functions, which are grouped
into 11 categories by the various purposes they
serve.
• Functions are useful on their own but become even

more powerful when combined.
• We are going to go over the most common functions

and function combinations that you are likely to
encounter in financial analysis.

Introduction to Excel Functions (cont’d)
• Before moving on to drills, let’s discuss the

structure of Excel functions:
• Every function starts with an = sign,
then the function name, and then the
cell range (bound within parentheses).
• All functions follow the same syntax:
=functionname(argument1,
argument2,…, argumentx)
• Within the parentheses, functions can have

0, 1, or many arguments, separated
by commas.

Introduction to Excel Functions (cont’d)
• In the SUM function =SUM(A1:A10), there

is only one argument, and the argument is An IF function has 3 arguments:
telling Excel the specific cell range that
needs to be summed up; we will
encounter functions where there are
several arguments.
• Arguments will become a little clearer

when we deal with them, but for now just
remember that arguments are things
inside the parentheses of a function,
separated by commas, that tell Excel
certain things about the function.

Drill – SUM (Math & Trig)
• The SUM function automatically

adds all the numbers in a specified
cell range.
• Without the SUM function, you’d

have to individually add each cell
using the “+” operation.
• Using the SUM function:

1. Go back to Sheet3 and insert a column heading in G1 as shown below and move the cursor down to
G2.
2. Press Alt = and you will notice that Excel will automatically insert a function called SUM that sums
all of the revenues from historical years and calculates them in cell G2.
3. You could have also manually typed this formula and used the arrow keys to highlight the range of
cells you wish to sum together.
Drill – AVERAGE (Statistical)
• Now let’s say you want to determine what average absolute gross profit was from 2005-
2008. Excel has a built-in average function that calculates the average of a range of selected
cells or numbers.
• Calculate the average gross profit as shown below:

Common Problems with Formulas and Functions
Error Reason
Formula treated as text Forgetting the equal sign (=) at the start or inserting a space before the
equal sign of the formula is treated by Excel as text
#DIV/0! Dividing a number by zero
#REF! An invalid cell reference
#NUM! Inserting invalid numerical values in a formula or function
#NAME? Unrecognizable text in a formula
# VALUE! Inserting incorrect arguments in a function
##### When the column is not wide enough to fit the data in a cell, You must
widen the cell to fix the error (Alt H O I)

Logical Functions: IF
The IF function is one of the most useful functions in Excel.
• The IF function returns one value if a condition you specify evaluates to TRUE and another
value if it evaluates to FALSE.
• Use IF to conduct conditional tests on values and formulas.
• All IF statements follow the same structure =IF(x,y,z), where:
x Criteria
y Output if criteria evaluates to true
z Output if criteria evaluates to false
• Text output is designated by quotation marks around the outputs.

Simple & Nested IF
Statements

IFS Statement

Drill – Error-trapping Function IFERROR
• =IFERROR(value,value_if_error) returns a value you specify if a formula evaluates to an

error. If the formula does not result in an error, IFERROR returns the result of the formula.

Drill – Creating Dynamic Headers by Combining Cell
References With Text (“&”)
• Excel allows users to combine (or "concatenate") cells with a text string in them with other
text strings, creating one text string by using the "&" function.

IFERROR & Concatenation

Drill – Date Functions (EOMONTH)
• Excel has many date functions, but Eomonth is

perhaps the most useful for building financial models Dates in Excel are serial numbers
or any analysis spread out over multiple periods.
When using dates in general in Excel,
• =EOMONTH(start_date,months) allows you to understand that Excel stores dates as serial
create monthly date headers, by outputting the last numbers – they must be formatted as dates
day of a specified month. (use Ctrl 1) in order to look like
recognizable dates to the user.
• start_date represents a starting date reference.
• months represents x number of months before or

after the start_date.
• To output a date x months before a start_date, x should be negative.
EDATE(start_date,months) is a similar function to EOMONTH
• The difference is that EDATE returns the exact date, x months from the start date.
Cell Contents as Criteria in IF Statements, ISNUMBER, and ISTEXT
• A surprisingly useful criteria used in IF statements, is a test of whether a cell has anything
in it.
• For example, the IF statement =IF(C1,C2,C3) would see if there is anything in cell C1, and if
there was, it would output C2, otherwise C3.
• Two functions that do something similar are the ISNUMBER and ISTEXT function, both
typically embedded within an IF statement, and test whether there is a number or text
inside a cell, respectively.

Cell Contents as Criteria in IF Statements, ISNUMBER, and ISTEXT (cont’d)
In the example below, we

combine an IF statement
with the ISTEXT function
to create outputs that are
different depending on
whether there was text in
the criteria cell.

YEARFRAC
• YEARFRAC(start_date, end_date, basis)

returns the proportion of the year between The basis represents the number of days
two given dates, the start_date and per month/year used to calculate the
end_date. Basis is an optional parameter. proportion of the year.
0 or omitted = U.S. 30/360
• YEARFRAC is useful in financial modeling
1 = Actual/Actual
when projecting future cash flows or
obligations for a fraction of a year. We 2 = Actual/360
often term the fraction of a year a “Stub 3 = Actual/365
Year Fraction.” 4 = European 30/360

DATE, DAY, MONTH, and YEAR Functions
• DATE(year,month,day) is a
function that combines distinct
year, month, and day elements into
a valid date function in Excel.
• Combining this function with

DAY(serial number),
MONTH(serial number), and
YEAR(serial number) is
sometimes useful for creating date
functions out of disparate data.

Drills – AND, OR Functions
• Recall the nested IF that we had to build in a

prior drill to output whether both you and
your sibling are old enough to vote. The
AND function facilitates the type of analysis
where you need to evaluate multiple
arguments at once.
• =AND(logical1,logical2, ...) evaluates to

true if all its arguments are true; false if one
or more argument is false.
• A close cousin is the OR function

=OR(logical1,logical2,..) which evaluates
to true if at least one argument is true.
EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Lookup Functions
& Data Tables

HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP
Some of the most useful functions in Excel are functions that allow you to locate data stored in
large tables. HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP are the most popular functions for performing this type of
data extraction.
• =HLOOKUP( look up value, table range, row number) searches for a value in the top row of a table
or an array of values, and then returns a value in the same column from a row you specify in the table
or array.
• Use HLOOKUP when your comparison values are located in a row across the top of a table of
data, and you want to look down a specified number of rows.
• =VLOOKUP(lookup value, table range, column number) searches for a value in the leftmost column of
a table, and then returns a value in the same row from a column you specify in the table or array.
• Use VLOOKUP when your comparison values are located in a column to the left of a table of data,
and you want to look across (and to the right) a specified number of columns.

HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP (cont’d)
Range lookup
• H/VLOOKUP have an optional
fourth argument called range
lookup. If range lookup is omitted
or TRUE, an approximate match
to the lookup value is returned. If
the range lookup is FALSE, an
exact match is returned. When
lookup value is text or numbers in
non-ascending order, the FALSE
range lookup is often preferred.

Other Lookup Functions
• Although less popular than HLOOKUPs and VLOOKUPs, Excel also offers several other data
extraction functions that are often a better fit for solving certain types of data extraction
problems.
• OFFSET returns a cell value or range of cell values that is a specified number of rows and
columns from a cell or range of cells. Syntax: =OFFSET(reference,rows,cols,height,width).
• INDEX returns a value from a specified row and column from within a table or range.
Syntax: =INDEX(array,row_num,column_num).
• CHOOSE returns a number from a specified list of up to 254 values. Syntax:

=CHOOSE(index_num,value1,value2,value3,…).

Drills – MATCH Function
• The MATCH function returns the relative position (number) of an item in an array that
matches specified lookup value. Syntax:
=MATCH(lookup_value,lookup_array,match_type).
• It does NOT return the value within the cell itself (as opposed to the HLOOKUP and
VLOOKUP functions).

Combining functions like HLOOKUP,
VLOOKUP, OFFSET, INDEX, and
CHOOSE, make formulas more durable
and dynamic.

Drills – MATCH Function
• The MATCH function returns the

relative position (number) of an item
in an array that matches specified
lookup value. Syntax: =MATCH(lookup_
value,lookup_array,match_type).
• It does NOT return the value within the cell itself (as opposed to the HLOOKUP and
VLOOKUP functions).
• Better together: Combining with lookup & reference functions

• Combining with functions like HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, OFFSET, INDEX, and CHOOSE, to
make formulas more durable and dynamic.

INDIRECT and Concatenation (“&”)
• Indirect is a very interesting function in

Excel. At first blush, it seems somewhat
pointless, but in certain contexts can be
very useful.
• =INDIRECT(reference text) returns the

reference specified by a text string.
• For example =INDIRECT(“B4”) will
output the value of what is in cell B4.

INDIRECT and Concatenation (“&”) (cont’d)
• One of the most common ways to get value

out of this function is to combine with
concatenate.
• Look at the illustration on the right. The

model allows for a flexible user defined
start and end date for calculating a
cumulative EBITDA result?
• How would you create such a utility?
• INDIRECT would really help here.

Data validation is a utility in Excel,
whose most frequently used feature is
its ability to create simple and quick
drop-down menus.

Drills – Data Validation
1. To create a dropdown menu, with the cell where you want your drop-down menu active, open the data
validation form (Alt D L).
2. Within the Settings tab, select list from the dropdown menu.
3. Within the ‘Source:’ field, identify a contiguous cell range containing the data you want to include in your
dropdown, and hit OK and you should see your dropdown menu appear (note: it only appears when you
are on the active cell).

Drills – Data Tables
• Data tables allow us to examine a piece of output data – such as a company’s EPS –
and how it is impacted by changes in input variables such as revenues and gross margin
assumptions.
• Data tables output the results in a presentation-friendly matrix.
• Often used for sensitivity analysis (i.e. EPS’s sensitivity to changes in gross profit margin)
and is used widely by analysts to illustrate a range of possible output values.

Drills – Building a Vertical Data Table
1. Identify the output variable:

• The variable you are trying to sensitize is
the output variable.
• Must be referenced from your analysis into
the top right corner of the data table.
2. Hard-code the input variable sensitivities:

• The variables whose impact on the output
variables you want to analyze are the input
variables.
• Input variable assumptions should not be
referenced from the analysis, but rather be
hard-coded and arranged in the column to
the right of the output variable.

Drills – Building a Vertical Data Table (cont’d)
• Run the data table

• Hit (Alt D T); the Data Table dialog will appear.
• Row input cell: Not needed for vertical data tables.
• Column input cell: Reference the input variable from the model.

Drills – Building a Vertical Data Table (cont’d)
• Highlight the entire range (including the

output variable) and hit OK when done – Important
the data table should populate. Data tables must always be in the same
• You may need to hit F9 if Excel is set to worksheet as the input variables.
“manual” or “automatic calculations except
for data tables.”

Drills – Building a Horizontal Data Table
From a substance standpoint, it’s the same as vertical (difference is aesthetic).
1. Referenced output variable from your analysis into the bottom left corner of the data table.
2. Input the input assumptions in the row above and one cell to the right of the output reference.
3. Highlight the entire range (including the output variable) and hit (Alt D T); the Data Table dialog
will appear.
• Row input cell: Reference the input variable from the model.
• Column input cell: Not needed.
• Hit OK when done – the data table should populate.

Drills – Building a 2-sided Data Table
• Same as vertical data table but allows for 2 inputs instead of one.
• Output variable must be referenced from the model into the top left corner of the data table.
• See illustration below:

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Mathematical
Functions

SUMPRODUCT
• We now turn to some of
the most frequently used
and beneficial
mathematical functions in
Excel. Like the reference
and lookup functions, the
usefulness of these
functions really becomes
apparent when combining
with other Excel
functionality.
• =SUMPRODUCT(array1,
array2,array3, ...)
multiplies corresponding
components in two or
more arrays, and returns
the sum of those products.

SUMPRODUCT (cont’d)
• A lesser know feature of SUMPRODUCT is

the ability to embed criteria directly into
the arrays.
• Before we can use that, we first need to

understand how Excel really deals with
arguments that evaluate to TRUE or
FALSE (Booleans).

The SUMPRODUCT
Function

Booleans in Excel
• When Excel spits out a
TRUE or FALSE, you can
convert them
respectively into 1 or 0
by applying any
operator on them.
• Interestingly,
multiplying a TRUE (or
FALSE) by another
TRUE (or FALSE) also
has the effect of
converting it into a 1 or
0, respectively.
• Understanding this will

have surprisingly useful
implications for us.
SUMPRODUCT with Embedded Criteria
• A lesser know feature of SUMPRODUCT is the ability to embed criteria directly into the arrays.
• For example, we can directly calculate proceeds on options that have an exercise price less than the share
price so you no longer need to calculate option proceeds for each tranche:
• We have 2 criteria – the options # and the exercise price per tranche, which is multiplied against a
TRUE or FALSE criteria for each exercise tranche.
• Tranche 1 evaluates to TRUE, so Excel multiplies the TRUE by the Tranche 1 exercise price, and then
by the # of options.
• Tranche 2 & 3 evaluate to FALSE, and become 0 when multiplied by the exercise prices.

SUMIF
• =SUMIF(range, criteria, sum range) adds the cells specified by a given criteria.
• Criteria can either be hardcoded which requires quotation marks as you see below, or a
direct cell reference (which would not need quotes around it).

SUMIFs
• =SUMIFS(range1, criteria1, sum range1, range2, criteria2, sum range2, etc).
• Same as SUMIF but can handle multiple criteria and sum ranges.

AVERAGEIF and AVERAGEIFS
AVERAGEIF and AVERAGEIFS are identical to SUMIF and SUMIFS but instead of
summing, this function averages the data in the range.

Functions Covered In This Section
• ABS
• CEILING
• FLOOR

Functions Covered In This Section (cont’d)
• COMBIN
• ROUND
• ROUNDUP
• ROUNDDOWN

Drills – MIN and MAX
• MIN and MAX functions are used frequently in financial analysis. A classic use in financial
modeling is to use a max function to prevent a revolving credit line balance from dipping
below 0 when there is a cash shortfall.
• =MIN(number1,number2,…) returns the smallest number in a specified set of values.
• =MAX(number1,number2,…) returns the largest number in a specified set of values.

Drills – COUNT, COUNTA, and COUNTIF
• COUNT: =COUNT(value1, value2, … )

counts the number of cells that contain
numbers within the list of arguments.
Cells with text are disregarded.
• COUNTA: Same as COUNT except cells

with numbers and text are counted.
• COUNTIF: =COUNTIF(range, criteria) counts the number of items in the range that satisfy a
specific criteria – similar to the SUMIF function.
• COUNTIFS: =COUNTIF(range1, criteria1, range2, critera2) allows for multiple criteria – similar
to the SUMIFs function.

Drill – PV Function
• Returns the present value of a series of future payments. Arguments Description
• Syntax: =PV(rate, nper, pmt, fv, type) where: rate Interest rate per period
nper Total number of payment

Bond math periods
PV and FV functions are useful when the payments in an

pmt Payment made during each
annuity are constant, like with fixed coupon debt. period (it cannot change)
fv Future value
type Indicates when payments are

due:
• 0 or omitted = end of the
period
• 1 = beginning of the period

Drill – FV Function
• Returns the future value of an investment based on constant Arguments Description

payment and interest rate.
rate Interest rate per period
• Syntax: =FV(rate, nper, pmt, pv, type) where:
nper Total number of payment
periods
pmt Payment made during each

period (it cannot change)
pv Present value
type Indicates when payments are

due:
• 0 or omitted = end of the
period
• 1 = beginning of the period

Drill – NPV Function
• =NPV(rate, value1, value2, …) returns the net present

value of an investment based on a discount rate and a NPV vs. PV functions
series of future payments (negative values) and income • PV assumes constant payments, while
(positive values). NPV cash flows can vary from period
to period.
• Values are assumed to occur at the end of each time period
and must be referenced in the order in which they occur. • NPV does not require user to
explicitly identify number of periods
and simply assumes equal periods
based on the number of values.
• NPV assumes payments occur at the
end of the period (but formula can be
adjusted to simulate payments
occurring at beginning
of period).

Drill – XNPV Function
• NPV performs equal discounting on each

cash flow – this is not desirable when
the timing of cash flows is uneven.
• =XNPV(rate, values, dates) returns the

net present value for a set of cash flows
that do not necessarily occur at equal
time intervals.
• Unlike NPV, the first cash flow is not

discounted, while dates of subsequent
cash flows can be included in the
formula in any order.

IRR
• =IRR(values, guess) returns the IRR for a

series of values.
• IRR is the rate corresponding to an NPV

of 0.
• While values do not have to be identical

each period, the periods are assumed to be
equally far apart.
• ‘Guess’ is an optional argument. Excel needs

a starting point to iterate to the right IRR.
If you choose not to input a “guess”, Excel
will automatically use 10% as the guess.

XIRR
• =XIRR(values, dates, guess) returns the

IRR for a series values which may not
be periodic.
• The date of each cash flow must be

referenced in the formula (the “dates”).
There must be both positive and negative value

• For an IRR or XIRR to be calculated, there must be both positive and negative values.
• Since IRR represents the rate at which NPV is 0, cash inflows must be offset by some outflows.

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Text Functions

Text Functions
• For professionals that have to work Text functions we will cover

extracting data from large inconsistent
and poorly formatted data sets, text LEN LOWER
functions can be absolutely critical. LEFT TRUNC
• We will cover the ones listed here. RIGHT SEARCH
MID FIND
PROPER SUBSTITUTE
UPPER REPLACE

Flash Fill (Excel 2013 Only)
Excel 2013 has introduced a real improvement to working

with large data sets in the form of Flash Fill (Ctrl E).
New in Excel 2013

Flash Fill
(Excel 2013 Only)

Text to Columns

Remove Duplicates

VALUE

DATEVALUE

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Sorting, Filters, and

Pivot Tables

Drill – Sorting Data
Excel has very powerful sorting and filtering

capabilities that make working with large data sets
more manageable. We will start by covering Excel’s
sort and subtotal functionality.
• Insert new worksheet and fill in data as shown below.
• Highlight the entire table or have the cursor in one of

the cells in the table.
• Hit Alt D S (Data Tab > Sort) to bring up the

‘Sort’ menu.
• You can choose to sort various columns by value, cell

color, or font color, and in ascending or descending
order. In this drill, please sort by LTM Revenue in
ascending order.
Drill – Sorting Data
(cont’d)
• You can sort multiple
levels, so if you wanted
to sort by industry first
and then by revenue
within each industry,
you just need to click
‘Add Level.’

Combining Sort &
Subtotal
• Combining Sort with
Subtotal (Alt A B) can
add further clarity to
data sets.
• In the illustration, we
first sort by industry,
and then by market cap,
and create a subtotal for
each industry.

Drill – Autofiltering
Notice that the
• What if you wanted to filtered rows have
filter your list of been hidden, but not
deleted.
companies to only show
Fortunately, if you
those with an EBITDA
copy and paste the
that is greater than the filtered range to
group average? another area
of the worksheet or a
• Auto-filter (Alt A T) is a different worksheet
altogether, it does
tool that enables you to
not copy over the
filter by a wide range hidden rows.
of criteria.
• You should now see

drop-down arrows in
the column headings of
your table.

Drill – Autofiltering
(cont’d)
• Once a filter is applied –
you can tell which
column was filtered via
the funnel icon.
• To remove individual
filters, click on the filter
icon and ‘Clear filter.’
• To remove all filters, hit

Alt A T again.

Pivot Tables
• A Pivot Table is an efficient, visual tool for

analyzing, exploring, and presenting large
amounts of data.
• It is particularly useful when your data

needs to be sliced and diced in a variety
of ways.
• Can be a huge time saver over complicated

lookup and reference formulas, sorts
and filters.

Pivot Tables (cont’d)
• Here we see a large data set. With a pivot table we

can quickly answer questions like:
1. Which property type is most expensive/most
common in a specific region?
2. Which REIT had the greatest sales within a
specific region or for a specific property type.
• The name “Pivot Table” comes from the ability to

‘Pivot,’ or quickly swap out different row and column
parameters to observe data in different ways.

Drill – Pivot Table Exercise
• Locate the worksheet titled “PT Input”

in Excel Practice Sheet 1.
• Use your arrows to move to any cell

inside the table of data and hit:
• Alt N V T (Excel 2010).
• Alt N V (Excel 2013).
• Excel will automatically highlight the

entire table of data. Select to open the
Pivot Table in a new worksheet.

Drill – Pivot Table (cont’d) Exercise
• A new worksheet will open showing the

Pivot Table Field List. This shows a list of
the data’s categories (REIT, property
type, etc.) and the 4 areas of the Pivot
Table:
• Using your mouse, you can drag any of

the data categories into any of the 4
areas of the Pivot Table. As you drag a
category into one of the 4 areas of the
table, the Pivot Table itself will
automatically reorganize to Drag fields down to any of the 4 areas to build
accommodate the newly added category. your Pivot Table.

Drill – Pivot Table Exercise
(cont’d)
1. Drag ‘Property Type’
to COLUMNS.
2. Drag ‘REIT’ to ROWS.
3. Drag ‘Sq. Ft.’

to VALUES.
The Pivot Table should

automatically show the 4
property type column
headers and a Grand Total
column as illustrated.

Drill – Pivot Table (cont’d) Exercise
• Clicking on the drop-down arrow allows

you to sort and filter the column headers in
various ways. For example, if you wanted to
show data only for BRE Properties, you
could unselect the other REITs.
• You can have lots of fun with the pivot table:

1. Drag the ‘Region’ field below REIT in
ROWS see how each REIT performs
by region.
2. Replace the ‘Sq. Ft.’ field with
‘Property Values’ in VALUES.

Drill – Value Field Settings
• To see counts of properties by REIT and Region instead of sum of all their property values,
all you need to do is change the Value Field Settings of the field in VALUES.
• The Field Settings enables you to show outputs in a variety of different ways.

Drill – Value Field
Settings (cont’d)
• The Value Field Settings
also has a “Show Values
As” tab, which enables
you to present the
VALUES in a variety of
useful ways.
• In this illustration we
present property values
for each REIT and Region
as a % of the total.
• Another very useful

“Show values as” output
is ‘running totals’, for
when the data table is
presenting tiered data.

New to Excel 2013 – Distinct Count
• Prior to 2010, a challenge was

capturing distinct counts of
duplicate items presented in large
data sets. To illustrate, say we
wanted to identify the distinct count
of invoices by manufacturer so that
Toyota’s sedan invoice #234 is only
counted once.
• In Excel 2010 you could see counts

(like in the prior screen) but not
distinct counts.
• In Excel 2013 distinct counts have

been added, to the elation of many.

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Using Excel to
Solve Problems

The Fiscal Half Date
Problem

The Olympic Event
Problem

The Olympic Event
Problem (cont’d)

I hope you enjoyed this thorough
introduction to Excel.

Next Steps
SUMMARY
ü Use Excel
ü Incorporate what you learned

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Using LAMBDA to
Create Custom Functions

Use a LAMBDA function to create
custom, reusable functions and call
them by a friendly name.

Create Your First
LAMBDA Function

Create CAGR Function

LAMBDA: Create a
DSO Function

LAMBDA: The =IMPLIEDG()
Function

LAMBDA: The =EOQUARTER()
Function

LAMBDA: The =TSM()
Function

LAMBDA: The =SHEETNAME
() Function

Using LAMBDA Functions
Across Multiple Workbooks

EXCEL CRASH COURSE
Appendix:
Recording Macros &
Custom Formatting

Introduction to VBA & Recording Macros
• Frequent Excel use almost certainly

entails repeating many tasks. For
example, you might find yourself setting
up print ranges in a particular way, or
formatting cells in a particular way.
• Rather than repeatedly going through the

same series of steps to do this manually,
Excel allows you to record a sequence of
instructions, and assign a keyboard
shortcut to invoke them as desired. The
instructions are called macros.

Introduction to VBA & Recording Macros (cont’d)
The sky is the limit
• Excel also enables users with no programming knowledge to write Macros using Excel’s
intuitive macro recorder, which essentially watches what you do visually in Excel and
converts it into a programming script.
• Of course, having a computer programming background can definitely help power charge
your macros because Excel enables you to write these Macros using programming scripts
• The goal of this brief treatment of macros is to introduce you to the macro recorder and give
you just a sliver for vast capabilities of using macros in Excel.

Introduction to VBA & Recording Macros (cont’d)
Before we begin, make sure that you see the Developer tab in the ribbon.
Don’t see the Developer tab?

• Click the File tab.
• Click Options.
• Click Customize Ribbon.
• Under Customize the Ribbon and under Main Tabs, select the Developer check box.

Drills – Recording Macros
Create a macro to turn a cell’s contents blue, format it

to have 1 decimal place, comma delineated, with a
yellow background.
1. Select ‘Use Relative References.’
2. Place the cursor in any cell.
3. Alt L R brings up ‘Record Macro’ menu.
4. Input a name and shortcut key (Ctrl Shift Z). As
soon as you hit OK, you are starting to record
this macro.
5. Format the cell (using Ctrl 1).
6. When finished, hit Alt L R to stop recording.
• Now try going to any cell or a range of cells and hitting

Ctrl Shift Z; those cells’ contents should be formatted
per your preferences.
Caution on Using Macros
• The biggest problem with macros is that after

you run your macro, you lose the ability to
undo all the prior work so be careful!
• Custom shortcuts override pre-existing

shortcuts.
• If you want your macro to run every time you

use Excel, select Personal Macro Workbook
instead of This Workbook.
• After the macro is created, you can always

delete or rename a macro or change shortcut
keys assigned to it by clicking Macros in the
Developer tab.

Thank you!
wallstreetprep.com

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Excel Crash Course

Licensed to Pranav Suresh. Email address: prnvsuresh@gmail.com

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• This course applies to

• The versions are

• When those differences

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• Novice Excel users depend on the mouse

• However, since professionals like financial

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• If you are completely new to Excel, this

• If you have used Excel in the past, go

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• Unlike Excel 2010,

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• Name Box – Tells you what cell you are in.

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• Worksheets – An Excel file is called a

• The active worksheet is highlighted in

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• Columns are alphabetically labeled (A, B,

• Rows are numerically labeled (1, 2, 3, etc.).

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To access the features in the ribbon, you have several options:

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Navigating to the toolbars without

• Hit Alt and the appropriate letter (or

• If you give it a try, you’ll find that it is

Includes most formatting

• Font type, size, and color

• Inserting, deleting, and

• Adjusting columns and

• Inserting, deleting, and

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• Alt T O works too (don’t

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• You can also protect

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• Most keyboard shortcuts involve Alt or Ctrl keys, so it is

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• Most commands involving Ctrl are shortcuts

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If you haven’t already, please open a blank Excel file.

3. In cell B4 type in the text ‘Gross Profit’.

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5. In cell D1 type ‘2006’, E1 type ‘2007’, F1 type ‘2008’.

6. Now populate the with the numbers below:

Period 2005 2006 2007 2008

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1. Highlight Column B by pressing Ctrl Spacebar. Then press Auto-fit column

4. If you want a row to have a certain height, press Alt H O H

• Excel formulas start with the equal sign (=).

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• Notice how the text in column B is aligned to

• Excel aligns numbers to the right and text to

• Hitting Ctrl 1 from an Excel worksheet pulls up

• After hitting Ctrl 1 to pull up the ‘Format