Improve your finance team’s financial reporting in Excel

Sage Intelligence recently launched an exciting online course for Microsoft® Excel® 2013 which will help you not only move to the next level of financial reporting, but also improve inefficiencies in your company. There are many useful features covered in this course, but in this article, we focus on three particular functions that highlight the importance of Excel to your finance team. These three functions are commands that every financial person should be able to use and are as follow; Vlookup, Data Consolidation, and Pivot Tables. In this article, we explain how these three functions can improve your team’s financial reporting in Excel.

team-excel

The Vlookup is one of the most commonly used functions in Excel. It is a versatile formula that is used for looking up data. You can use the Vlookup to lookup data:

  • On the same worksheet.
  • Different worksheet.
  • Another workbook.

With all your general ledger balances in one worksheet, you can create an income statement report on the same or different worksheet. The account numbers can be used as the common field in both ranges of data. You can then proceed to create an Income statement in a short space of time. By using the Vlookup formula, the task of creating the financial report will thus be simplified with great time-saving.

Consolidating financial reports is an important exercise for financial professionals. You can consolidate reports from difference branches, regions, divisions, or geographical segments. Luckily, Excel has the Data Consolidation command that can summarize data from different worksheets or workbooks. You can have income statements or balance sheet reports for different branches in various worksheets or spreadsheets. To summarize, the Data Consolidation command can be used. Editing data in the source ranges will update the summary report. This option will enhance your reporting as you can see all the figures from various regions in one worksheet.

PivotTables are used for effectively analyzing large volumes of data in a matter of a few minutes saving you time and improving productivity. Though PivotTables are easy to use, they are powerful in terms of what you can accomplish with your reporting. With PivotTables, you can:

  • Summarize data.
  • Have an organized list of data.
  • Have a flexible list of data.
  • Display the same report in different ways.
  • Access other options like:
    • Charts
    • Subtotals
    • Grouping
    • What if analysis etc.

If you are looking at creating an aging analysis report for your debtors, Pivot Tables can be a good option. You then easily identify which clients have outstanding balances and for which period.

So, if you want to improve productivity and inefficiencies in your company in a relatively short space of time, then your team should be part of ‘Team Excel’. For more information on Excel on Steroids 2013 Online, contact Linda.Pollock@sage.com, or visit the Sage Intelligence Academy at www.sageintelligenceacademy.com.