Applied MS Excel for Business

Everyone thinks they know how to use Microsoft Excel, but do you really understand its full potential? Develop more than just a basic understanding of this highly useful tool to make your working life easier.

You'll learn how to use the most common and useful tools in the software, rather than carrying out tasks manually in this useful training programme. This will save you time and make you more efficient.

This Microsoft Excel evening course covers the functionality of MS Excel that's most requested by employers, including data analysis, allowing you to make the most of this common, but often under-used, software program.

Who is it for?

This excel for business course is for anyone who regularly uses Microsoft Excel at work, and who wants to make sure they are using the program correctly and that they have the most commonly required skills for using Excel.

Timetable

This Microsoft Excel evening short course runs for ten weeks. You can attend the two-hour lessons on weekday evenings.

City St George's Short Courses follow the academic year, delivering courses over three terms. These include:

• Autumn - October
• Spring - January
• Summer - April

Benefits

When you learn how to use Microsoft Excel correctly, you'll understand how to convert work done manually into Excel spreadsheets, making you more efficient and freeing up time to work on more rewarding tasks. Your new skills will also minimise mistakes in your work.

The excel for business course begins with a review of the basic functionality of MS Excel that you're expected to know already.

You'll learn how to build Microsoft Excel spreadsheets correctly, allowing you to take full advantage of its varied tools. By the end of the course, you'll know how to use all the program's fundamental and most commonly required functionality.

Many employers now require prospective employees who will be using MS Excel regularly to take a test in Excel. This course covers the majority of questions that appear in such tests.

You'll learn how to:

• Write arithmetic formulas, including precedence of operators and the proper use of brackets
• Create the formula for compound interest (the most important basis of financial mathematics)
• Use the Goal Seek tool
• Calculate depreciation using Goal Seek without using the built-in functions
• Calculate depreciation using the built-in functions in DB and SLN
• Use the IF function to analyse and interpret input data
• Use nested IF functions to deal with more complicated problems
• Fill in an order form with the aid of drop-down lists, automatic price lookup and calculation of discount
• Use the database functions (DCOUNT, DSUM and DAVERAGE) to produce an automatically updating monthly report
• Analyse tabular information using Pivot Table Wizard
• Record and write simple Visual Basic Macro programs, as well as learn suggested uses of simple macros.
• Use Scenario Manager in a forecasting environment.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Use the intermediate level and some advanced level features in MS Excel, including the VLOOKUP function, Pivot tables, Goal Seek, Scenario Manager, and simple macros
• Use the DSUM, DCOUNT and DAVERAGE functions, using multiple extraction criteria to summarise information in a spreadsheet
• Use complex nested formulas and logical tests in a business context
• Design tree diagrams to analyse situations where more complex examples of nested formulas and logical tests are required
• Understand how to use MS Excel's functionality and how to apply this appropriately in common business scenarios.

There's no formal assessment on this Microsoft Excel course, but you will receive a certificate of attendance.

This course uses project-based learning so you can see how to apply your new knowledge in your work. Each week you'll complete exercises and work on projects. As well as covering what you learn each week, these exercises will build on what you've learned previously.

If you progress quickly, you can move onto more advanced exercises to test your knowledge of the software.

You'll leave able to carry out a variety of common business tasks in MS Excel, including working out bonus payments linked to performance, gathering data about voting patterns in an election, grading student marks and calculating discounts.

To get the most out of this Excel course you need a basic knowledge of MS Excel, including how to:

• enter, edit, sort and filter data
• analyse data using simple statistical functions
• calculate numerical data
• use mathematical formulas.

English requirements

Applicants must have fluent written and spoken English.